Pennymac executives say their goal is to become a “dominant player” in wholesale. On Thursday, the publicly traded multichannel lender launched a new technology platform for brokers called “POWER+,” a key step toward generating more broker business.
“The platform was designed and developed using direct broker feedback, which shaped our workflow and functionality,” said Kim Nichols, senior managing director of Pennymac TPO. “Pennymac TPO is tech forward and human focused – our people drive what we do. We help brokers succeed and grow their business, while supporting their customers’ homeownership aspirations – it’s a human business, and we don’t forget that.”
The platform, which combines proprietary tools along with vendor-supplied solutions, offers an enhanced guided workflow that is “intuitive and significantly speeds up mortgage processing time at every step,” the company said in a statement Thursday.
Pennymac said its new platform allows brokers to complete loan setup, lock and disclose in a matter of minutes, which reduces processing time from loan creation to credit submission by as much as 40%, according to Pennymac. The POWER+ platform’s tools also ensure URLA accuracy before submission, the California-based firm said.
The custom fee screen enables brokers to accept, add and edit fees directly onto a screen that resembles a loan estimate. “Brokers will have more control with the option to self-serve using Pennymac’s default fees or selecting the platform’s dynamic search feature to pull in fees from over 25,000 settlement service providers across the country,” the company said in a press statement.
In an interview with HousingWire on Wednesday, Nichols noted that brokers also have access to a range of client teams and a dedicated technical support team at Pennymac to ensure a smooth process, as opposed to a call center.
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Tracie Hunter, the company’s senior managing director of production business technology, added that the platform enables brokers to manage and monitor third-party activities and allows borrowers to use a hybrid e-closing process.
To become a dominant player with brokers, Pennymac, which is the largest correspondent lender in the country, has some work to do.
In its second quarter results, Pennymac Financial disclosed that it had locked $2.2 billion in originations through the broker channel in the second quarter of 2022. In all, it laid claim to 2.2% of marketshare in the broker channel in the second quarter, which was a decline from the second quarter of 2021.
The channel leader, United Wholesale Mortgage, originated about $30 billion in the second quarter of 2022 and holds more than one-third market share in the broker space. Several other lenders, including Rocket Pro TPO, Homepoint, NewRez/Caliber and loanDepot, outpaced Pennymac in the broker space during the first half of the year.
But there are obvious opportunities to grow – loanDepot bowed out of the channel after reporting a $223 million loss in the second quarter, and Homepoint said it’s content to get smaller as origination opportunities become more rare in a rising rate environment.
