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THE COMPANY
While Chronos Solutions is well known for its default-related products and solutions, the company has recently made significant efforts to expand its offerings for the performing loan side of the industry.
In late July, Chronos acquired UPF Services, a Spokane Valley, Washington-based provider of risk management and technology solutions for the real estate and mortgage industries. The UPF purchase marks the fourth acquisition for Chronos since January 2015, when it acquired real estate auction marketplace Realtybid.com. In 2016, Chronos also acquired mortgage technology provider Cogent Road and Commerce Title and Closing Services.
“Acquiring UPF adds value and enables us to provide expanded and more complete solutions for the performing loan segment as well as loan originators. The acquisition also helps us further our goal of creating customized solutions on our clients’ behalf,” said Matt Slonaker, executive vice president of business development at Chronos.
With the recent additions, Chronos is now a one-stop shop for clients, becoming an end-to-end provider of a wide range of services that span the entire mortgage lifecycle, including:
•Loan application, processing, underwriting and closing
• Loan servicing
• Pre-foreclosure and foreclosure
• Capital markets
• REO asset management and disposition
Specific solutions include verification services, property valuations and alternative valuation services, title and closing, lien release and tracking services, real estate tax monitoring and even flood services.
“We take a holistic business approach in the development and design of your real estate solutions. Through customer collaboration we assess current processes and workflows, then use best practices to convert the customer’s preferred fulfillment process into an optimal product and service delivery solution. This methodology delivers a highly scalable delivery solution with exceptional productivity gains and lower fixed operational costs,” said Mark Hikel, who was CEO of UPF when Chronos purchased the company, and now serves as Chronos’ president of outsourced and origination solutions.
An example of this customer collaboration is Chronos’ InstantTax property tax solution, which the company developed after seeing clients struggling to meet the TRID requirement for disclosing an estimated annual property tax amount. Previously, lenders would have to contact the individual taxing authority for each loan — a cumbersome process. Now, Chronos’ property tax solution instantaneously provides the annual tax amount, the property tax owed and an estimate of what amount to collect at closing.
And bundling all its solutions supports clients where they need it most: on costs.
“Our solutions are highly scalable, offering higher productivity at lower costs,” Hikel said. “Having a platform that can mitigate or eliminate the cost associated with vendor management while staying within compliance is valuable to these organizations.”
“The concept is to provide a unique fulfillment and delivery strategy, aggregating all the mortgage and real estate data in an easy-to-use platform for the client. The real value of this strategy is that it improves data transparency, strategic and tactical performance, satisfies regulatory scrutiny, and increases operational productivity,” Hikel said.
By choosing Chronos, clients get to partner with an independent service provider who doesn’t compete with them, since it doesn’t have a captive servicing platform or an originator.
“Our technology is agnostic, so we can manage an REO asset or a performing loan, or a mortgage and appraisal,” Hikel said. “This allows us to be agile and responsive, and that’s where it starts. Agility and responsiveness to customer needs are the foundation of the platform.”
THE EXECUTIVES
Mark Hikel, President, Outsourced and Origination Solutions
Mark Hikel is a visionary and innovative business leader with more than 28 years of experience in executive management positions for multi-site operations, turnarounds, startups, and Fortune 500 companies. Previously, Hikel served as CEO of Spokane Valley, Washington-based UPF Services.
Prior to joining UPF Services, Hikel was the president of Mortgage Investment Associates, where he was responsible for architecting and executing the organization’s short and long-term corporate operations, sales, marketing, and e-commerce strategies.
Hikel was co-founder and president of HomeAmerica Financial Services, Inc., and has held executive positions with Loraca International, Bank One Financial Services, The CIT Group and Commercial Credit Corporation.
Michelle Steinmetzer, SVP of Operations, Outsourced and Origination Solutions
Michelle Steinmetzer has more than 16 years of experience in mortgage banking and real estate. She has worked within the wholesale mortgage industry as a senior manager and she currently leads all of Chronos Solutions’ production departments in the Spokane Valley office. She is also responsible for the design, implementation and management of policies and procedures used to control the fulfillment platform.
