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60 Fannie Mae origination volume estimates call for $1.69T in 2023, including $1.32T pur- chases. is is down 28% from $2.36T in 2022, which included $1.66T purchases. So, while the Fed's rate hikes to fight inflation are necessary, they are hitting lenders, homebuyers, and housing hard. However, servicing keeps growing, with MBA estimating outstanding loans at $13.72T by December. So, you can win if you're strong on capital, cost control, compliance, customer acqui- sition/retention, and, of course, fintech. Servicing fintech, when done right, checks all these boxes to keep homeowners happy in their homes while executing at scale with no mistakes in our highly regulated ecosystem. With this market context, let's look at some servicer play- books, and then run down four key predictions and takeaways for servicers in 2023. HOW TO ACHIEVE SCALABLE, COMPLIANT INNOVATION IN ANY MARKET Entrenched legacy systems stand in the way of accessing data, and data access—as well as data protection requirements—will only grow in importance as federal and state regulations proliferate and evolve. Servicing fintech solutions must allow homeowners to access their data securely from any device to manage their home-owning lives. is includes making payments, analyzing and adjusting tax and insurance escrow accounts in real-time, requesting help for (and resolving) hardships, and viewing and taking action on home value and available home equity. In our landmark partnership with Mr. Coo- per, America's No. 3-ranked mortgage servicer, Sagent acquired Mr. Cooper's core servicing fintech platforms along with 200 fintech employ- ees who are now integrated with Sagent building cloud-native solutions to power America's $13T+ servicing sector. Sagent's open-API platform makes thou- sands of consumer-owned data points available for you to configure workflows tailored to your customer service, team process, and investor reporting needs. Today, the platform serves 4 million of Mr. Cooper's customers, melding Mr. Cooper's servicing DNA with Sagent's robust tech stack to empower servicing operations teams with real-time data so they can see previous customer engagements, loan info—every salient detail about a customer—all in one place. e result is an efficient core servicing operation that powers lifetime homeowner relationships—through good times and bad— while serving investors and exceeding regulatory expectations. REAL-TIME INNOVATION FOR REAL- TIME COMPLIANCE e benefits of a cloud-native approach are speed, security, a better experience for constitu- ents, real-time processing, and compliance across all activities—all at scale, and always aligned with real-time policymaking. Here's an example of how that works in action: When the CARES Act went into effect to provide mortgage payment relief as the pandemic spiked in 2020, servicers (powered by Sagent) were ready with push-button forbearances on day 1 of the CARES relief effective date. Sagent's default platform handles the full non-performing lifecycle, enabling homeowners and servicers to work together from hardship request to resolution, and servicers can configure all customer service and compliance workflows to fit their processes. Yes, delinquencies are low today, and pandemic homeowner hardships have waned. But servicer technology must be ready today for tomorrow's cycles. At Sagent, we're investing in tomorrow to keep servicer cost and compliance tight while keeping homeowners happy and in their homes. A TOP-NOTCH HOMEOWNER EXPERIENCE DRIVES RETENTION AND PROFITABILITY MBA's recent Performance Report showed a cost of $11,016 to originate a loan in Q3 2022, and while that number is expected to come down as originators remove capacity from the system, these customer acquisition costs have many lend- ers doubling down on servicing to compensate. However, too many of the tech tools that servicers use today are deeply siloed, creating additional customer experience hiccups in an industry already struggling to meet consumer expectations. Retention has never been more important, and servicers must be able to deliver a bank- Sponsored Content By Dan Sogorka KEY PREDICTIONS & TAKEAWAYS FOR MORTGAGE SERVICERS IN 2023