Adoption of remote online notarization soared 547% in 2020, according to a new survey from the American Land Title Association of major vendors working in the RON space.
The increase in adoption is largely due to protocols related to the COVID-19 pandemic and the fact that 29 states have passed permanent RON legislation.
“Today, RON is being utilized most extensively in Florida, Texas and Virginia,” ALTA told its members. “Additionally, use of this technology is trending up significantly in Midwestern states. A decade ago, Virginia became the first state to enact a RON law and in 2017 Texas was the third state to approve RON legislation. Florida’s law is relatively new, having passed in 2019, but adoption there has been rapid.”
Earlier this year, Notarize and Realogy Title Group reported seeing a 200% spike in RON closings due to safety concerns from the pandemic. However, that too, has grown.
Now, Notarize reported its volume of real estate notarizations increased 825% over 2019.
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“Much of this massive growth from 2019 to 2020 can be attributed to the pandemic-induced digitization of this traditionally offline process when in-person was no longer an option,” Notarize told HousingWire. “Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella recently said that the world experienced two years of innovation in two months, and we’ve seen it with our own eyes here at Notarize. We’ve watched the real estate industry move quickly to ensure critical transactions were finally digitized. The digital future has arrived and it’s even better than we imagined – we aren’t going back.”
In a Q&A with HousingWire earlier this month, Notarize CEO Pat Kinsel put it simply, saying, “There’s no going back to the days before RON.”
“Almost every business has been forced to redesign every customer interaction,” he said. “It’s no longer possible for someone to safely pop in to sign something. If the industry can continue to reimagine how they serve their clients and rewire how they work, RON should and will be further implemented.”
Back in November, digital notary platform NotaryCam announced it had been awarded the RON Compliance Certification through the Mortgage Industry Standard Maintenance Organization – making it the eighth company to receive the certification. In fact, the number of companies with this certificate doubled in just three months.
