Issue #43: Magazine Table of Contents Shows Just How Far Digital Transformation Has Really Come

Believe it or not, I keep up on my trade publications. I’ll admit, I don’t read every word of every email or turn every page (for those that still do print). But I keep an eye on things. Especially during this odd period of semi-quarantine and limited travel.

The August issue of a newer magazine, Mortgage Banker (and yes, I know it’s September now…I’ve been meaning to write this for a few weeks!), caught my attention recently. And it did so in its table of contents. You can see for yourself here. Here are just a few of the titles:

• The Next Big Thing in Loan Efficiency: Reducing Friction Between Borrowers and Investors
• eSigned, Sealed and Delivered
• The Rapidly Changing World of eClosings
• New Age of Digital Mortgages: Pandemic Pushes eSignatures and Remote Online Notarization Forward

Now, intertwined amongst these features were the obligatory COVID-19 pieces and contributions. But what really caught my attention is that this publication is the official magazine of the MCPAOA—a compliance organization!

Maybe it’s a stretch. Or maybe this was just their month to run an operations theme. Regardless, it struck me how far we’ve come in just three or four years. It really wasn’t long ago when our industry couldn’t be bothered to talk about, much less read about, just about anything process, operations or tech-oriented. Remember, these trades write about what people will read. Not what they should read! Editors and writers lose their jobs when they don’t get enough clicks or subscriptions. Yet here, we have a compliance publication writing about eClosings, eSignatures and loan efficiency.

Maybe there’s hope for us after all! Ten years ago, I wondered if we’d ever get around to introducing the concept of technology to improve our convoluted, stapled-together mortgage “process.” Conversations about “End-to-end mortgages” and eClosings usually ended with some variation of “maybe some day.” Today, as we start to introduce fragments of AI and the like into the conversation, it would appear that slowly (maybe even begrudgingly), we’re making our way towards a more efficient mortgage lending process.

And that gives me hope.

Ideas or suggestions for future topics? Have something you’d like to say to the readers of Deeper Thoughts? Please share with me at jpaolino@lssoftwaresolutions.com.