Breaking silos and modernizing mortgage servicing: Alex Verget on compliance, UX, and scalable innovation

Mortgage servicing is stuck between legacy systems, regulatory complexity, and rising customer expectations. Allison LaForgia sits down with Alex Verget, VP of Business Services at Aspen Grove, to explore how the industry can break down silos and create a connected ecosystem among lenders, servicers, technology partners, and regulators. 

Alex delves into the balance between compliance and user experience, demonstrating how Aspen Grove’s approach enables organizations to scale efficiently without compromising quality. Alex also shares insights into how intuitive, connected solutions are shaping the future of mortgage servicing. 

“Mortgage servicing to me actually started in Dubai in 2008 with the global financial crisis,” he said. “Overnight the city almost imploded… projects were collapsing… thousands of people lost their jobs, lost their houses, got on airplanes, never returned.”

That moment shaped his leadership lens. “The Burj Dubai… ran out of financing,” Verget recalled. “The competing Emirate of Abu Dhabi had to bail out the project… The lesson… is collaborate or collapse.” For servicing, he added, “Collaboration is what’s going to empower all of the future of servicing… to keep compliance and keep servicing healthy for the industry—and most importantly, healthy for the borrowers.”

Inside today’s shops, Verget sees (and understands) the inherent complexities between people and tech. “A servicer might sign into a CRM, a system of record, compliance tools, vendor systems… and then carry the compliance piece in their heads.” The fix starts with simplification. “If we could simplify their work environment even a little… and democratize that subject-matter expertise into teams, you create efficiencies.”

Data is the foundation. “There’s a great quote from my fictional hero, Sherlock Holmes: ‘I cannot make bricks without clay.’ Data is the clay that builds the business operations.” The goal, he said, is “a standard single pane” that can be reused across tasks.

Verget tied that to Aspen Grove’s platform approach. “We use a no-code, low-code platform to build out workflows,” he said. “What used to take months is now hours or days.” Compliance is engineered in: “You can manipulate the software to guardrail functions… build rules into the structure. Just by executing the task, you stay compliant.”

User experience is non-negotiable. “If they don’t like it, they’re not going to use it.” Aspen Grove provides “a common UI that stretches across all the different business units… the workflow is different, but the UI is the same,” enabling mobility across teams. Equally important is role-based visibility. “We surface and hide data according to the function being executed… Start with the workflow, identify the 10 key points, and let users pull more without leaving the task.”

“We are in an affordability crisis,” Verget said, citing a teacher cousin in Denver. The opportunity: “Connect loan officers to servicers and share the right data between stakeholders… create that end-to-end view… and expose auditors to time-, date-, audit-stamped activity quickly.”

On AI, Verget reframed the acronym. “I don’t like things that are artificial… I’m going to take artificial out of AI and put amplification in.” The premise is simple: “If you’ve got good data and good process… AI will amplify that. If you’ve got bad data and bad process… you’ll amplify what comes out.” He compared today to the cloud shift: “In five years, software went from license-based to feature-level tracking… We are there right now with AI.”

“Humans and technology,” he concluded, “a human-centric approach, and amplifying good processes and data—that’s the win-win. The opportunity is massive.”