MortgagePoint » Your Trusted Source for Mortgage Banking and Servicing News
58
August 2023
E X P E R T I N S I G H T S
Rob Nunziata, Co-Founder and CEO at ActiveComply,
discusses how the mortgage industry was impacted by the
pandemic, the liabilities that a work-from-home staff bring,
and how home lenders and servicers are managing this risk.
R
ob Nunziata is the Co-Founder and
CEO of ActiveComply, a provider
of cloud-based solutions that help
companies in highly regulated
industries stay compliant. He is also the
Co-CEO of Orlando, Florida-based FBC
Mortgage LLC, one of the nation's largest
retail home lenders. Before joining FBC more
than 17 years ago, he worked at First Horizon
National Corp. Nunziata majored in business,
finance, and marketing at the University of
Florida's Washington College of Business.
Contact Nunziata at rob@activecomply.com.
Q:
Why is any compliance
monitoring needed for
employees who want to work from
home?
The biggest reason is the fact that the
mortgage industry has become much more
heavily regulated since the 2008 financial
crisis. Depending on where they do business,
lenders must meet a variety of federal and
state requirements regarding what their em-
ployees can and cannot do—requirements
that involve everything from marketing to
how sensitive consumer data is handled.
In addition, lenders need to ensure their
employees have safe and compliant working
conditions wherever they work, including at
home. These requirements apply whether
employees are working in the office or from
home, but monitoring employees for compli-
ance is obviously much harder if they're not
in a company's offices.
The other reason is that lenders and ser-
vicers with employees who started working
remotely during the pandemic are now being
held accountable to agencies and regulators,
so monitoring is not an option.
Q:
How did the pandemic change
things?
Almost overnight, real estate finance
firms had many or all of their employees
transition from their offices to working from
home. In the meantime, many states lifted
rules and guidelines that would normally
Expert Insights
HOW MORTGAGE COMPANIES HAVE
BEEN IMPACTED BY THE PANDEMIC