Mike Lawson, host of CU Broadcast, interviewed Solarity President and CEO Mina Worthington, Chief Revenue Officer Ralph Cumbee and Vice President of Home Loans Debbie Ingle, about how Solarity has become an early adopter of fully online home loan closings, known as the Solarity eSigning Experience.
“This is one step in the process for (Solarity’s) digital transformation,” said Worthington. “The non-contact via COVID pushed things forward for us so we saw the opportunity that presented itself for transforming processes and innovating.”
“If you keep in mind this is all about the member experience, everything is captured around that,” said Ingle. “We introduce this from the very beginning, because we see it as such a benefit for the members.”
Ingle explains that a key piece of this process is that members have an opportunity to read the documents they are signing beforehand, which allows them to get answers to any questions they have – before the official closing. This allows members to take their time as the Solarity Home Loan Closing Coordinator walks them through each document.
“The member works with us anytime, anyplace, anywhere and we constantly have folks who are out of town. They do not now have to make a special appointment, find babysitters, come to a title company – go somewhere,” Cumbee says. “From the member’s perspective… it is great.”
Worthington talked about the philosophy behind Solarity’s decision to move in this direction.
“How do we make it easier to get this transactional stuff out of the way so you can move on with your life and do more things that you love with the people you love? Versus banking transactions or lending transactions,” Worthington says. “It’s spilled over throughout our organization; we’ve also done this in our branches and our digital experiences throughout, just to try and make things as easy as possible for people.”
“We’ve got quite a bit of experience under our belt and we’re nimble enough so that we can continue to tweak… and continuing to fine tune this,” Ingle says. She explains that her team is working closely with Solarity’s Member Experience team that interviews members about their experience so the process can be improved when and where needed.
“There are some huge players in the home loan business that are not beginning to touch this stuff,” said Cumbee, speaking to Solarity’s drive to be a leader in the industry in innovating the home loan closing process to make it easier for members and borrowers.
Lawson spoke to the digital world we live in – that consumers will come to expect a home loan closing process like Solarity’s to be available everywhere. Worthington couldn’t agree more.
“Home loan sales, home loan lending is an industry that’s ripe for disruption because it’s complicated and convoluted and the borrower is the most at-risk for being confused and/or disengaged in the process because of the complexity of it,” Worthington says, noting that innovating is the only way to survive. “Everyone needs to step up.”
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