Outsourcing continues to be a hot topic among mortgage lenders. We sat down with Krish Swaminathan of Sutherland Global Services to discuss how the right partner can help lenders manage costs, comply with regulations and impress their customers.
HousingWire: How does a business process outsourcing partnership benefit mortgage lenders?
Krish Swaminathan: Mortgage lenders benefit immensely by partnering with the right knowledge process outsourcing company. One of those benefits is increased client delight. Through various process improvements initiatives and relentless focus on customer satisfaction, we have developed several initiatives to ensure our client’s customers are impressed by the mortgage process. We are able to double our clients' profit per loan by decreasing the production cost per loan by half, we offer flexible pricing models including success-based pricing, and we are willing to share the risk based on the outcome of the loan.
Ramping up staff and adding capacity to handle volume swings is costly and time consuming to mortgage lenders. Partnering with a seasoned provider like Sutherland Mortgage allows lenders to expand without additional staff or taking on another lease. It also offers an alternate market to source mortgage talent, act as a disaster recovery site and run a champion-challenger model among operations sites. This allows our clients to be nimble. Partnering with a fully licensed entity like Sutherland allows clients to manage costs and comply with industry regulations, balancing the technological, operational and personnel needs of the business.
HW: What kind of experience does Sutherland Global bring to its outsourcing partnerships?
KS: We are mortgage bankers serving mortgage bankers. Our executive leadership team has an average of 20+ years experience running large-scale mortgage operations. The recent addition of key operational leaders including Kim Hoffman, CMB, AMP, former COO of mortgage operations at Morgan Stanley, and Michael Danlag, former vice president of loan servicing at PHH, has further strengthened our operational expertise. These leaders oversee more than 1,500 mortgage professionals with significant experience processing, underwriting, closing, servicing and auditing mortgages today.
HW: What outsourcing services do you provide?
KS: Sutherland is one of the only premier mortgage outsourcing companies with a complete menu of component and end-to-end mortgage services supporting the full lifecycle of the loan. Once an application is taken at the client’s site, we are capable of handling that loan through funding, including customer-focused processing, high-quality underwriting, pre-close audit, closing, funding and even the post-close trailing document chase.
While our expertise is end-to-end solutions, we also provide component solutions across the entire spectrum with mortgage origination and servicing.
HW: How can mortgage lenders get measurable results from partnering with Sutherland?
KS: One way lenders get results is reduced cycle times. I tell my team that “unlike wine, loans don’t age well.” Sutherland has developed several process improvements that translate directly to improved cycle time. Our time and motion studies break down the various steps and help us quickly identify areas where a loan is stuck in the process. We have a track record of closing 75% of one of our client’s loans within 21 days. Our goal is to build a platform to close all loans under 21 days. Our dual-shore process allows the loan to be in perpetual motion 24 hours a day.
Further, at Sutherland we understand that our most important measure is client satisfaction, which we determine by NPS (Net Promoter Score), client delight scores, or CSAT scores. Prompt, professional and cost-effective loan processing and frequent and effective customer communication are the keys to our high customer satisfaction score. Streamlined process doesn’t sacrifice quality. With an error rate of less than 3%, our track record speaks for itself.
HW: How does Sutherland deliver the kind of quality necessary under increased regulation?
KS: CFPB regulations and secondary market changes have made it almost a requirement to have mortgage and compliance expertise on site. We combine significant mortgage experience with operational rigor and streamlined processes, and then follow up with internal quality control and training. Also, scenario-based training and testing is an integral part of our new team member on-boarding process. Our experience, processes and commitment to customer service ensure an excellent outcome for our clients.
