How Affinity Plus Federal Credit Union innovates with eClose

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Welcome to our open house. Instead of examining hardwood floors, closet space, and kitchen layouts, we're taking you on a tour of what's happening across today's mortgage industry. During each episode, we'll hear from industry leaders and subject matter experts to give us an inside look into a hot topic, Cuttingedge technology, or new trend that can help accelerate your digital journey. Thank you for joining us. Come on in.

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This is Michelle Hansen, Product Marketing Director over at ICE Mortgage Technology. And I'm excited to have John Simonson, Vice President of Real Estate at Affinity Plus Federal Credit Union, here. Yeah, thank you for having me. Yeah. I was so excited to have you here in Las Vegas on the show floor at Experience 2022. Tons of people, a lot of life. So this is my first event post Pandemic. Is it yours? I've been at a couple last fall. I went to a few conferences, but, you know, there were still some restrictions.

0:56
Going on. But this is kind of been the first one that's felt very normal and you can tell with the vibe, a lot of people talking, a lot of people laughing, smiling, hugging, good to see so many people again. Oh yeah, it's a great time. I'm super excited to see everyone in person, lots of hugs, lots of high fives. So thanks for joining me today. We've had a couple conversations and I guess the last couple weeks specifically around E clothes and the hybrid E clothes ROI study that we recently did with Mark Wise.

1:25
We actually just did a press release a couple weeks ago where we announced in general, our lenders were saving roughly 70 minutes per loan and almost 2 1/2 days. So a lot of great results and really wanted to take some time to talk to you. I know you had experienced a lot of great results as well with hybridy clothes.

1:46
So just wanted to take a little bit of time to talk to you, learn a little bit more about why Affinity plus Federal Credit Union is adopting the technology, how you feel about delivering this to your customers and just really kind of dig into some of those details. First of all, how long have you been doing hybrid E closes? So full time we've been doing the hybrid E Closings since December?

2:07
Now that said, we launched the project and really the implementation of everything in conjunction with ICE in March of 21. So we got going early and we kind of jumped in the deep end which was a little bit nerve wracking generally were were one to kind of let's have some other people try it kind of see how things go. But on this one it was just intriguing for us to jump at it and get it going and.

2:31
Volume in March of 21 was still crazy, but we still wanted to find ways to be better and to improve and we began completing some meat Closings through this channel in late April. We kind of went month to month on the learnings of it. You know everyone, we learned something new, we learned something that we could do better on it. We just kind of took our time on it.

2:53
And that also included getting feedback from members of course through this channel, but the employees as well. The way we rolled it out, the way ICE partnered with us through this really couldn't have been more ideal because we were able to take our time. We were able to really just kind of.

3:08
Make sure we do it the way we wanted to and every lender will do it different. Everybody will have new ideas. Everybody will have different thoughts on how to do it. But we wanted to ensure all of our roles meaning all of our employees through the whole process, we're comfortable with things and of course the member first and foremost who wanted them to be comfortable with it. So we've been really, really, really happy with how we ended. But Long story short it's been most of 21 when we really started getting going on things. So that's great to hear and I love the fact that you say you you know you're putting your.

3:38
Employees and your customers first in terms of getting their feedback as well. Can you maybe expand a little bit on that on what you're hearing from them? Yeah, I mean it really for us comes down to the experience seems better. The members, you know, we learned a lot during COVID when everything kind of went down in March of 20. For the employees, it's simple. I think for them it's easier, it's less time consuming.

4:02
I think it opened their eyes and I think actually they were very surprised with how easy this actually was for them and how it streamlined things more for them From the member experience side of things through Kovat, what we learned, they want it to be easy and they want it to be efficient. And when March of 20 hits we were closing mortgages through the drive through on the curb side, I mean I think every lender was just turned upside down on how the heck are we going to close these through that though you realize that you as a lender have to adapt, but our members are willing to adapt to and.

4:32
And through adapting is, I just want to sign my documents and move on. I don't need to come into your branch. You know, we still have members who like to come in and sit down and drink their coffee and there there's that. But they kind of just want to sign and be done. And the hybrid E closing allows us that opportunity to get the documents to the members earlier in the process for them to review the documents to sign and you know they come in and it takes 10 or 15 minutes for them.

5:01
So that's been just a huge win, not only for them, but of course for us too. I love that word too adaptive and adapting because I think as we're seeing as we're talking about again being on the show floor here with people.

5:11
We've had to pivot and adapt with the pandemic and I think it's pushed us to innovate a little bit faster than maybe some folks are comfortable with, but definitely putting us all in a good spot. You're always trying to get better. You know, I mentioned that and I'll probably say that a couple more times here. You know, I think when the members adjust and they adapt to stuff like this too, technology can scare them a little bit. But when they see that technology is actually pretty easy, it's pretty efficient within itself. They join you.

5:41
In kind of rallying around this is how we're going to do it and this is how I'm going to do it. So it's fun, it's fun to see. You know, I mean Speaking of that, are there maybe some results that you can share or even some of what you're prioritizing in the next year or two in terms of your customer member experience? Yeah, you know, again I think just overall the experience is better. My think we're just more efficient and of course that leads into the closing side of things or more efficient.

6:06
Things are just happening faster. We've automated messages within a lot of this of the closing process too. You know, there's emails, there's text messages going out and just the flow of things too within those text messages and within those emails of kind of telling members and setting the expectation of what's next has helped the ton within that. So I think there's a result right there.

6:28
I think it's just easier for our members on that side of things. You know obviously the faster Closings, the DocuSign utility is and was familiar for a lot of them. So I touched upon the technology, a lot of them use that tool already and so members have it, they've seen it and it wasn't that cumbersome of a technology for them. It's very straightforward for our team. I think our team has less questions and they're doing less work through things as a result. It wasn't a huge transition for them either and.

6:57
Very much like, you know, some of the former ways that we used to do in the process or we had to do within the system like drawing docs as an example of things. It's just a new way of doing it and it's pretty easy and I think for employees it's been that way. You know, post close, I mean I could go on and on about stuff like this. I mean post close the funders how quickly they can view documents, you know to get.

7:19
Checks cut and out the door, the back end, you know, we're verifying fundings. There's just so many results that we've seen. And again, we're not even a year into this. So if you ask me again in a year where you know what will we see for results, I mean I think I'll be able to tell 10 different or 10 new things. You know, John, I really love your excitement on this topic. What I find interesting is I actually just came out of a session where we did a quick poll and we asked lenders, you know, where are you in your E close journey.

7:49
And we we roughly had 10% of lenders saying that it's not even, it's not a concern for this year, it's not a concern, it's not on their road map. You know that said what would you say to those lenders go do it because I think eventually you will see that this will be the industry norm. You know I think I think you will see lenders that will people are moving this way, members want you to move this way.

8:15
You need to continue with automation. You know you need to continue with efficiencies and and and I think you can ramp up your communications too with the hybrid equals model in ways that I don't think you can do right now to it will make you better. So that's what I would say to them. You know and again I I don't have the you know the biggest sample size less than a year but I'm telling you what we can see for not only now with what we've done to reap the benefits of it but.

8:42
What we can do to be better here down the road because I think of, well, what are our next steps? Yeah. And I mean, I love that advice. Joe Tyrell, the President of ICE Mortgage Technology had talked a little bit about really being able to change and being able to deliver an experience to your customer that changes with with today's technology and with today's behaviors. You know, it might not be something that Gen. Y or boomer generation or whatever it might be. It might be, you know, the current generation, the future generations, but.

9:12
They'll always be that challenge and they'll always be that difficulty of balancing it. Because I, you know I mentioned we still have members that like to come into the branch and see the employees and talk with them and and have coffee and that's totally fine and we want those members to be able to do that. But we also know that there is a huge segment of members and potential members within our walls at Affinity Plus that we have to provide them the technology and that ease and efficiency.

9:39
To really stay competitive too in the market, we've got to continue to move forward on that front because you know, we're at a conference here and it's all about competition. It's all about who's going to be the next big and best technology. Kind of got to go along with the ride on moving forward with everybody and the industry.

9:56
Yeah. And you know, that said, John, we've really been talking mainly about hybrid E clothes. Do you feel like you're going to start seeing additional results once you start adopting E Notes And Ron, yeah, I mean E Notes we can start anytime. And I was just in a session on that and I kept tapping the guy next to me. I'm like we're doing that next, we're doing that next, we're doing that next, you know, the Ron, which seems like, I mean there's multiple sessions here on Ron upcoming and it's a real heavy topic. It seems like Ron will be a big piece, the remote notary and.

10:26
You know, we're in a state, not every state is it that has adopted it yet. And in Minnesota, yeah, we have adopted it yet, but not every county has adopted it yet. So there's steps, there's stages here. So it's hard to kind of answer that question because yeah, we want to go with the E note. There's the E vault that goes along with it and the remote notary is going to be a big thing, but the remote notary seems like there's a lot, there's some hoops that need to happen and jump through yet to make that.

10:51
I think fully available to us and just particular lenders as well, but we're all getting there. So we're all getting there. I think we're all on the same page here. Thank you. I mean that's really I just very happy to share. I know we've been one of the early adopters of this and.

11:07
Again, just very happy with how things have went. We, we haven't been perfect with it through the implementation. We've had our learnings, no doubt about it. But in the end, I know what's made us better and I know the member experience has improved and there's going to be ups and downs here as we move forward with what's next and.

11:23
And how that needs to be implemented. And again, it'll be different for everybody. But yeah, thank you for having me and happy to share the information that we have. Yeah, Thank you, John. And to go back to the keynote again, I do like that every 1% we're getting, we're not going to be there 100%, right. It's not everything's going to happen at the same time.

11:42
But incrementally, 1% every day or as we go, we're gonna see a big change. So thank you so much for sharing this. Really excited to be here with you. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. I will see you soon. Yeah. Thank you. Bye.