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62 possible. As defined by Marco Iansiti and Karim R. Lakhani in the January/February 2017 Har- vard Business Review article "e Truth About Blockchain," blockchain is "an open, distribut- ed ledger that can record transactions between two parties efficiently and in a verifiable and permanent way." at simple description suggests countless possible applications across innumerable fields, but is blockchain truly the revolutionary force it's been hyped as? Stacey Caster, VP of Technology Commu- nications for Quicken Loans, jokes, "Somebody said to me the other day … 'blockchain is a solution that's trying to find a problem.' Simple innovation is that way. If you think about the microwave technology, it was a long time before they thought of the microwave. I think block- chain is that way. Eventually, we'll find the right thing for it. I still think it's a little ways off, till we find what that problem that we're trying to solve." "We have been told that entities like the Gates Foundation have funded a company to use blockchain and distributed ledger technol- ogy for medical records," Ibanez says. "ey're doing these things. It works. e question is, how do you make it work at scale, how do you make it perform, how do you do it affordably, and oh, by the way, how do you do it in an ecosystem where everything has to network and talk together?" If those questions can be answered, however, Ibanez says she thinks "there are tremendous ways (blockchain) could be used in sourcing, servicing and nonperforming loans across the value chain." "e first rule of blockchain in my mind is, if you don't need to use blockchain, don't use blockchain," Stephan says. "And you can't adopt blockchain on your own. It's a system that you'd have to create. I think we can all sit down at a table and have a conversation about what would or should blockchain's role be in the mortgage industry. … I don't really see grand scale implementations in the next couple of years, but I think those conversations are really, really important." Having the constantly updating intercon- nectedness that blockchain offers—at least in theory—could be invaluable in the servicing world, where loans change hands frequently. Helping remove physical paperwork from the process as much as possible, and to have all par- ties able to see and interact with digital versions of all the relevant forms, could streamline the process and remove headaches immeasurably. Not every useful available technology has to be revolutionary, however—or even new. Anthony Pham, CFO and Head of Innova- tion and Technology for JMAC Lending, says that JMAC is putting a lot of focus on evolving optical character recognition (OCR), a technol- ogy that's existed in some rudimentary form for decades. "We get a 100-page submission from our broker and we have to index it, we have to review it, we have to validate it," Pham says. "So if a system could index it ... that's relatively elementary for systems today, but if they could take the data out of it and interpret it and use that data, it would make the process more efficient. You're trying to get more data and be able to use that data as a person would." Along those same lines, Ibanez says her team is working hard to figure out how to make use of cloud technology in an efficient and safe way. "ere are many, many issues regard- ing (using cloud technology) safely," Ibanez explains. "How do we protect all of these bor- rowers' privacy? … We have to go to the cloud because of the speed and scalability, but you cannot do it in a way that's going to compro- mise privacy. … We are working really, really hard to figure out how to leverage all the new technology to improve the customer experience, to make it cheaper and faster for our custom- ers to originate and service loans and still do it safely." IT'S ABOUT THE CUSTOMER As Director of Fannie Mae's Innovation Team, Stephan works "to bring external insights and research into the company and share it broadly with employees." Stephan says much of her focus is on getting inside the heads of Fannie's partners to understand the "Blockchain is a solution that's trying to find a problem. Simple innovation is that way. If you think about the microwave technology, it was a long time before they thought of the microwave." —Stacey Caster, VP of Technology Communications, Quicken Loans