Before I could even finish a digital innovation feature piece for HousingWire’s magazine, get it edited, published and put on the website, let alone delivered in the mail, Wells Fargo had already rolled out an entirely new, more simplified and streamlined app for cell phones.
Needless to say, today’s digital pace of change is rapid.
Julie Lane, senior vice president of home lending digital sales for Wells Fargo, explained in a follow-up interview with HousingWire that Wells Fargo’s pace of change is centered on a passion for its consumers.
Consumers are seeing changes and updates in Uber and Goggle constantly, and their expectation are rising. As a result, Wells Fargo’s response has risen.
HousingWire’s May magazine feature, “Digital disruption: How consumer demand is pushing lenders to a new normal,” focuses on the new normal: a paperless, streamlined and simplified mortgage process, as dictated by consumers.
And it’s not just the big banks, like Wells Fargo, that are moving toward this. It’s the companies like Sofi and Quicken Loans that are also taking the initial steps to bring the mortgage industry up to speed with the rest of the world.
“For bank and nonbank lenders to increase loan origination volumes, they will need to better understand and anticipate the driver at the center of market change: digital-savvy borrowers,” Kelly Adkisson, a managing director for Accenture Credit Services, said in the magazine feature.
Wells Fargo’s latest app for borrowers is simply one example of a lender doing exactly this.
Lane explained in her interview that the new app was a complete redesign around more engagement for its customers.
For example, in the new app, consumers can access a full list of nearby mortgage consultants to work with, letting them check out their options on their own.
You don’t go to a $10 or $15 dollar dinner without checking Yelp first, why would you buy a home without doing some research on the person you’re working with, Lane said.
And what’s more, Wells Fargo isn’t even close to done, with Lane saying they have a lot more coming in the next year. And I can guarantee so do a lot of other lenders.
To compete in today’s industry, no lender can be done innovating, but it’s these innovations that make the market great.
Check out how other lenders, big and small, are adjusting to the new digital mortgage world in HousingWire’s May magazine feature, “Digital disruption: How consumer demand is pushing lenders to a new normal.”
