DS News

20 New mindsets are impacting the innovation space as it looks beyond technology. Varma Penmatsa who is responsible for providing effective product and technology solutions through customer engagement, design thinking, innovation, and agile delivery at Fannie Mae, spoke to DS News on why it was important to engage customers to build and implement effective digital servicing products and what gives him the satisfaction of a job well done. What role does customer engagement play in providing efficient and effective technology? Our customers are at the center of everything we do at Fannie Mae, and customer engagement is key to driving innovation. We engage with our customers early and often, through our customer co-development panels that help us receive direct and continuous feedback, test and build products, and ensure that we are delivering the right capabilities that address their pain points. I'm part of Fannie Mae's Digital Products organization, which won the 2019 Business Intelligence Group award for leading innovation in the industry. A key tenet of our digital operating model is Test & Learn—we design and pilot with customers to directly address their business needs, before we scale the new capabilities for full market availability. is process ensures that we have an opportunity to get customer feedback with minimal initial investment and then can easily pivot if needed, and without significant impact on resources. Test & Learn is now part of our organizational DNA and we have seen substantial improvement in our speed of delivery and success of the product adoption by the customers. Please give some examples of the projects driven by innovation that you have been engaged in recently. Fannie Mae introduced "Simplifying Servicing" in early 2017, a multiyear initiative with the focus on innovation across the entire servicing life cycle, to help address key pain points and reduce costs for our customers. We have delivered several innovative capabilities to date that have been well received by our customers and are working on more. Ask Poli, launched in 2018, is our self-learning tool that provides fast and accurate answers to Fannie Mae's Selling and Servicing Policy/ Guides. Historically, lenders searched for policy guidance on fanniemae.com, Google, or other websites and struggled with long, confusing answers and more links. Now, Ask Poli not only gives them the most accurate answers immediately, but it also leverages Natural Language Processing (NLP) so that answers are shared in easy-to-understand terms. Ask Poli's artificial intelligence (AI) helps it continuously learn through the inputs provided by users, though we also actively monitor the tool to ensure that the responses are in line with our policies. Since the launch, we have received more than 600,000 selling and servicing queries, giving us tremendous real time insights and helping us to respond to customer needs quickly. We are now working on increasing distribution channels and expanding content to address more complicated scenarios. In late 2017, we launched a new faster, simpler servicing claims experience that lowers servicer costs and effort by providing data transparency and document-free submissions on most claims. is capability offers one-to-two- day decisions and simplified policies for our customers on claims reimbursements. Loan Servicing Data Utility (LSDU), launched in 2018, is a suite of self-service tools providing near real-time view for servicers into Fannie Mae loan data and exceptions. is capability enables servicers to reconcile their loan and cash positions with us throughout the month, increasing self-service and reducing "We engage with our customers early and often, through our customer co- development panels that help us receive direct and continuous feedback, test and build products, and ensure that we are delivering the right capabilities that address their pain points." FIVE MINUTES WITH GET TO KNOW INDUSTRY EXECUTIVES BEYOND THE BOARDROOM Varma Penmatsa VP, Digital Products and Servicing, Fannie Mae

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