NTS and FAN CEO and Founder Aaron Davis recently shared his thoughts on digital closings and Remote Online Notarization (RON) in what would be the June cover story for MortgagePoint Magazine (thanks, guys!). We strongly encourage you to have a look. The short version is that RON and digital closings are at the threshold of widespread marketplace adoption. Mortgage lenders who want to take advantage of the marketing, CX and operational efficiencies that come with digital settlements should be careful in selecting their closing partners. He also shared a second, more subtle message.
The future is here. It’s going to be a lot easier for lenders to take up the digital closing process. The excuses are running out for title agents and lenders alike. Settlement-side providers are partnering up so that lenders don’t have to break new ground to offer their borrowers the convenience of RON and/or digital settlements.
The concept of RON-as-a-service is now reality. And you can embrace it or choose to resist or ignore it.
Odds are, sooner than later, that kind of stance (similarly to resistance to things like email, automobiles, assembly lines and electric appliances) will become a competitive disadvantage in the eyes of lenders and real estate professionals alike. Not to mention consumers. (“What do you mean I have to leave my job and drive across town during the workday to sign a pile of papers?! Who does that anymore”)
Increasingly, title technology providers and settlement services firms (like FAN and NTS), will be partnering with folks like Notarize (as we do) to deliver their expertise with digital closings and/or RON to lenders with minimal fuss or obligation at the lender end. Let’s be honest. When it comes to closings, mortgage lenders want them fast, seamless and, above all, done. They want a quick, efficient ending to the sale as well as happy customers. They want the clear-to-close to quickly become closed.
Nothing ruins a closing like a TRID glitch, a mix up with required documentation or something similar that causes a rescheduling. And nothing makes a mortgage lender notice its title and closing partner more starkly than closing errors and rescheduling.
There will, undoubtedly, be some who hang up a shingle pronouncing themselves RON providers without doing much more than marketing it. As Aaron mentions in his MortgagePoint article, the best RON-as-a-service providers will offer technology choices that align neatly with a lender’s process and technology. They’ll have significant experience in the markets the lender is targeting. They’ll have an understanding of the compliance landscape. In all likelihood, they won’t be the newcomers (at least, at first). Instead, they’ll be the pioneers of RON.
Kind of like FAN, NTS and Notarize.
We’d love to hear your thoughts on the matter. Give us a call or shoot us an email. We’d be happy to discuss!
