Optimizing efficiency for a leading US mortage lender.
The brief.
As the adverse economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic began to take hold, interest rates dropped sharply, and mortgage lenders were suddenly deluged by a wave of refinancing and new home purchasing activity. Most lenders were unprepared to handle this sudden wave of business in terms of people and infrastructure resources. Our client, one of the largest non-bank providers of direct-to-consumer loans, engaged Ascendum to help them expedite and improve their underwriting services and knowledge processing.
Our approach.
Having a delivery leadership experienced in all aspects of the mortgage industry enabled us to rapidly mobilize our global onshore and offshore teams to provide the critical support they needed better service the surge of new business. Ascendum quickly enlisted and employed highly-experienced teams of global underwriters in only three weeks to help ease the bottlenecks the client was facing. Additionally, we added teams to scrub files prior to underwriting, as well as review all closed-loan portfolios. Ascendum not only responded to the company’s immediate needs, but also proactively provided solutions to anticipate its needs.
As interest rates began their precipitous drop in early 2020, our volumes really started to build as did our backlog. We turned to Ascendum to assist us not only with their underwriting services but also with several operational services that have not only helped us to reduce our backlog, but have now enabled us to expand our business. They are a trusted, valued and extremely responsive partner.
The outcome.
Valuable support to enable the client to close loans in their pipeline, timely execution, improved quality and faster turn times.
• Reduced backlogs by strategic deployment of resources
• Improved quality to identify discrepancies
• Faster turn times leading to better service
• Enhanced client's ability to enter new lines of business
• Rapid implementation of policies and guidelines
• Trained resources to easily transition between processes
