Say Hello to Mortgages for Financial Services Cloud
Learning Objectives
After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:
- Describe the business problem solved by Mortgages for Financial Services Cloud.
- List the features and benefits of Mortgages for Financial Services Cloud.
Introduction
Sofia Lopez, a mortgage loan officer at Cumulus Mortgages (part of Cumulus Cloud Bank) assists prospective borrowers, both consumers and business people, in choosing and applying for suitable loan products. For borrowers like Richard Bennett, she’s the main point of contact with the bank through the loan closing process.
Most loans require a ton of paperwork, and mortgages are no different. But Sofia’s superpower is to make it all look effortless to borrowers like Richard so they can focus on what’s important: getting that mortgage at the best interest rate and with the least amount of friction. Sofia is passionate about what she does and constantly looking for opportunities to improve processes.
While Sofia focuses on what she does best (guiding clients like Richard through the treacherous bureaucratic rabbit hole that is the mortgage application process), mortgage underwriters like Shah Jahan help the Cumulus lending process run like a well-oiled machine in the background. Shah determines if Richard does in fact qualify for a mortgage. To do this, Shah uses the three C’s of mortgage underwriting:
- Credit reputation: Richard’s credit behavior over time
- Capacity: His ability to repay the loan
- Collateral: The value of the underlying asset that Richard’s trying to borrow for
Shah is meticulous, and at the end of the three-C’s process, he makes a determination: to approve, suspend, or decline Richard’s application file. Did we mention the mortgage lending process is a treacherous bureaucratic minefield?
Shah and Sofia recently heard their colleague Matt talk about a supercool feature that Salesforce rolled out called Mortgages for Financial Services Cloud. Matt’s the all-star Salesforce admin at Cumulus Bank. After hearing this wunderkind rave about this new Salesforce innovation, they want in on the action.
Sofia learns that Mortgages for Financial Services Cloud can simplify and accelerate the mortgage application process. No more clerical grunt work! Mortgages for Financial Services Cloud can unify the mortgage experience for borrowers, lenders, and partners. This includes guided loan applications to speed up the mortgage process, streamlined document tracking, and approvals, and a new mortgage data model for lenders to build deeper, more complete relationships with each borrower.
Meet Cumulus Mortgages
Cumulus Mortgages, part of the larger Cumulus Cloud Bank, is a large, well-diversified provider of mortgage services nationwide. Cumulus has a loyal customer base who have been trusting it with their mortgage needs for generations. But like many other industries, the mortgage industry today is in the throes of digital disruption. Younger customers demand exceptional experiences—and they will do business only with those companies that offer them. That means companies like Cumulus need to pivot fast and rethink how they’re connecting with their customers at every touchpoint. They need to make digital investments that enable first-rate customer experiences.
Borrowers find that applying for a mortgage is the most complicated and time-consuming task they experience when engaging with a financial services institution. In fact, it takes an average of 46 days to close on a mortgage, due to data and archaic processes that are fragmented across many different silos and stakeholders. This experience is not acceptable for anyone, let alone younger, digital-first buyers, who make up 37% of the home-buyer market (and growing).
And with the increasing competition from fintech disruptors and independent brokers, mortgage companies like Cumulus are under greater pressure than ever to make the lending experience seamless and borrower-centric.
What Mortgages for Financial Services Cloud Can Do
Sofia chats with her Salesforce admin friend Matt and quizzes him about the benefits of Mortgages for Financial Services Cloud.
- Guided Residential Loan Application takes borrowers like Richard and loan officers like Sofia on a seamless journey through a 1003-compliant residential loan application form. It guides users through prebuilt, step-by-step actions and recommendations to capture relevant data. Traditionally, Sofia would have to manually upload data and documentation about Richard throughout the loan process. This is error-prone and leaves room for critical documentation to be overlooked, creating a lengthier approval process for Richard. With Mortgages for Financial Services Cloud, applications are smoother for all parties, loans close quicker, and Richard gets the keys to his dream home even faster.
- Document Tracking and Approvals provides simplified document collection with templatized checklists and automated approval management. For example, Sofia and Richard can collaborate by following the checklist and ensuring no document or task falls through the cracks. If a document such as a W-2 is missing, Richard can easily upload these files through a secure portal. Structured document tracking and approvals allow Sofia to pivot the focus from moving paperwork around to helping her clients move into their dream homes.
- Mortgage Data Model delivers comprehensive prebuilt mortgage objects that make it easier to capture information such as Richard’s address, income, and employment, enabling Sofia to view these details in context with a borrower’s household relationships, goals, and other financial accounts. Given that borrowers are required to provide more information during the mortgage process than at any other touchpoint, capturing this data also creates opportunities for Cumulus Mortgages to use Financial Services Cloud to generate needs-based referrals to other lines of business at Cumulus Cloud Bank. With these pre-built objects for data capture, Sofia is able to ensure consistency and streamline the overall mortgage application process in one place.
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