Technology plays a crucial role in servicers’ ability of servicers to support their borrowers in this challenging time. Whether borrowers are experiencing COVID-related financial hardships and need forbearance or are looking for refinance opportunities amid record low rates, Sagent’s technology empowers servicers to meet borrowers at their point of need and create true customers for life.
Borrowers in Hardship
Since forbearances spiked in March, Sagent’s smart loan servicing software has helped servicers comply with federal requirements for scaling mortgage forbearances with minimal documentation, track and report investor and liquidity obligations, care for customers who needed help immediately, and prepare customers for protracted hardship scenarios.
Powered by Sagent Account Connect, servicers have enabled instant self-serve borrower forbearance requests while enabling customers to get human advice at a moment’s notice on their smartphone, tablet, or desktop computer.
And servicers using Sagent’s LoanServ haven’t missed a beat tracking all borrower and investor obligations and payment processing — even if payments aren’t actually received from borrowers in forbearance.
Since May, the top three reasons homeowners are exiting forbearance are because 1) they never actually missed a payment, 2) they made their account current with one lump sum payment, or 3) they’ve agreed to square away missed payments at the end of the loan per COVID mortgage relief policy under the CARES Act.
In all cases, Sagent Account Connect enables servicers to let their borrowers manage these hardship changes to their loans in real time. Sagent tracks this forbearance exit data to help servicers determine in advance how to care for borrowers as hardships mature.
Sagent also helps servicers determine post-forbearance scenarios and lets borrowers request and manage loan modifications or other loss mitigation paths directly in Account Connect.
Sagent Account Connect powers the same phone-based digital mortgage experience borrowers know from the origination process, and Sagent enterprise LoanServ and Tempo® products power a streamlined underwriting/decisioning process for servicers for fast, compliant decision-making.
Retaining Borrowers Looking to Refi
With Sagent, servicers are finally able to engage homeowners like originators do, which will prevent them from seeking new loans elsewhere. Servicers can use real-time borrower data to offer money-saving refinances, home improvement loans, and new home search options to keep borrowers off real estate portals that lure customers away.
Sagent’s LoanServ is a servicing system of record providing real-time data to each customer through their Account Connect consumer-facing suite that lenders can brand as their own. Rather than waiting for customers to use Account Connect to model out how to pay off loans faster, servicers can also push these insights to borrowers proactively.
Servicers can also communicate with customers about post-forbearance refinance guidelines and critical timelines on their forbearances or loan mods.
The Sagent Difference
If originators are the finders of customers, servicers must be the keepers of those customers, and Sagent has spent many years and tens of millions of loans building out a three-tier suite for servicers so they can keep those customers for life.
The suite includes:
- A core system of record for payments, accounting, reporting, escrow administration, customer service, and other functions for borrowers, regulators and investors
- Full default management functionality including loss mitigation, foreclosures, REO, claims, litigation, and decisioning
- A modern bank-on-your-phone experience for both consumers and servicers
Sagent makes these capabilities available in a modular way, so servicers can bring it all into their stack, or just select one of the three components.
The origination relationship mostly runs within the 45-to-90-day transaction window, whereas the servicing relationship runs for the rest of the duration of the customer’s loan. Thus, servicing systems of record are far more complex than originations systems because they must power servicers to care for, engage, and retain borrowers throughout the performing and non-performing lifecycle of any loan.
With Sagent, borrowers don’t need to wait to speak with servicer reps when they need help. Instead, they just use their lender-branded Account Connect to request forbearances, extensions, or loan modifications in just a few clicks. If their situation is improving, they can also request to exit forbearance in moments.
And for borrowers who are stable and want to take advantage of low rates, Account Connect provides an easy way for them to refi without having to start over with a new lender.
Sagent technology puts servicers in the driver’s seat, helping them engage with and retain their customers whether they’re looking to refinance, add a new loan, or sell their existing home to finance a new one.
