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» VISIT US ONLINE @ DSNEWS.COM 59 it up-to-date, and ways to more effectively share and communicate it between different entities. Technologies such as blockchain, AI, machine learning (ML), and robotic assistants all have enormous potential to help, whether on the data--management front or in streamlining or automating interactions with borrowers or industry partners. As Chase's Jain told us, it all amounts to improved efficiencies and overall cost savings—in theory, at least. "Intuitively, we can all see and understand the benefits, but servicers must be careful not to fall into a trap," said Sean Ryan, CEO, Aspen Grove Solutions. "If you don't invest in gathering the data and creating effective data models, your investment in AI/ML tools will be much more difficult and expensive and may not have the desired outcomes." Brosnan spotlighted another common industry buzzword in the fintech realm: robotic process automation (RPA). "at's a fancy term for 'better workflow,'" Brosnan said. "ere's not going to be an end-to-end workflow system that handles everything. What servicers need to do is to look to their vendors that have their own systems and enable those systems to work with each other." at can be a challenge, but some industry players are already seeing key benefits from implementing RPA solutions. "We recently took a process in our bankruptcy department that used to take a person about 30 minutes to do," said Gagan Sharma, President & CEO, BSI Financial. "rough an RPA pilot, we were able to reduce that to about two minutes that effectively requires a human being just to do one click. It saves time, but it also improves compliance. We are minimizing the likelihood of human error in the process." Debbie Hoffman, CEO and Founder, Symmetry Blockchain Solutions, said that advances within other industries in the areas of AI and data aggregation are beginning to seep into the worlds of mortgage lending and servicing, but there is still a long way to go yet. "AI can be used to assist with the underwriting and loan-processing actions by extracting borrower information," Hoffman said. "It can be used to verify income, insurance, and assets that would otherwise need to be manually checked. e biggest issue in this area may be the inherent challenge of addressing bias in AI." First American's Estrella told DS News that "improvements in workflow software options to include and leverage data, title work, and new document generation functionalities are all innovations that will significantly impact servicing in the next few years, as the industry continues to move towards digital mortgages." "Machine learning, combined with RPA, could be transformative in our business," Sharma said. "However, it will be a continuum and an evolution. ere's no one silver bullet." KEEPING CHANNELS OPEN Navigating the modern default servicing landscape requires constant, efficient communication between one's own team, other partner vendors, and the various government agencies with which the industry interacts, including the GSEs. Keeping one's bearings in a twisting maze of regulatory requirements from federal, state, and local levels can be overwhelming. Where technology has perhaps the greatest potential to assist the industry is in not just automating more processes, but in helping ensure that the massive amounts of data inherent in mortgage servicing can pass from one point of contact to another as seamlessly as possible. "Workflow and documentation technologies are not, in and of themselves, all that transformative," Brosnan said. "What's transformative is moving data between various systems so that everybody can interact. at continues to be a spotty and frustrating challenge for the industry." Lori Eshoo, President and CEO, National Tax Search, told DS News that she's already seen robotic technology giving her company a huge advantage in its ability to keep track of tax payments and impending penalties for their clients. In the past, National Tax Search would have to buy current and delinquent tax files from the various respective states on a monthly basis in order to stay abreast of penalties. Now, with robotic technology that allows the company to access digital versions of those files for states that have put them online, NTS can access that same data on a weekly or even a daily basis. However, that level of automation and technological advance is not consistent across the board, with some states jumping aboard the digitization bandwagon sooner than others. Nevertheless, taking advantage of automating these processes and data pulls as much as possible can result in significant cost savings. Eshoo also emphasized the importance of building and maintaining automated program interfaces that allow external vendors such as NTS to interact with servicer's systems to share and update data on both sides in a seamless manner. "at's the future of updating servicing systems on a nightly basis," Eshoo said, "being able to transfer data from our system to their system without having somebody in the middle." Aspen Grove's Sean Ryan told DS News that ensuring more positive outcomes for borrowers will require the facilitation of more "multi- directional interactions," rather than focusing only on the loan itself. Ryan explained that he has often seen instances where loss mitigation teams are not connected to the inspection/ preservation oversight teams, or there are different teams for different aspects of the default process. "If the loss mitigation team has no access to what is happening with the property at a critical point in time when a decision is required, how can they make the best-informed decision for the borrower?" Ryan asked. "What if the property has just flipped from occupied to vacant as evidenced by the most recent inspection? What if work is ordered on a property and the borrower reinstates the loan but may not actually be in the house? How does the repair work order get cancelled to prevent leakage?" Ryan said that these issues can be addressed with a connected property servicing platform, integrated in real time to loan servicers, vendors, and other systems used across default servicing. "e dollars to drive technology initiatives can be found in the savings to be realized by the investment itself," Ryan said. However, knowing the general shape of a solution doesn't necessarily make it easy to implement. DIMONT's Denis Brosnan told DS News that one roadblock is, ironically, that the traditional servicing systems already in place are good at what they do. "eir job is to account for a tremendous number of financial transactions across a huge volume of loans," Brosnan said. "However, the legacy nature of servicers' technology frameworks frustrates what we call the 'ilities'—things like usability, extensibility, and interoperability. at's a huge roadblock to improving efficiency in a complex supply chain." e solution to many of these disconnected problems, DIMONT's Brosnan suggests, is

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