SANTA ANA, Calif. -
"We can now be sure that we're getting the best rate out to the member," said Katerina Soukhorado, avp-secondary marketing for the $870-million CU.
Although it would be "great" if the CU's loan origination system (LOS) could produce mortgage rate sheets, it can't, said Soukhorado. For a long while, then, Soukhorado imported rates from four individual investors and the CU's wide range of portfolio products into Microsoft Excel spreadsheets.
"The rate sheet inputs were very inaccurate because the process required so many formulas, columns, worksheets and what-not. The columns would get skewed every time an investor changed rates or added a coupon. Then I'd have to rebuild the spreadsheet and perform quite a few manipulations within Excel to produce accurate rate sheets," she said. "The process was lengthy."
If changes came down mid-day from an investor, members had to settle for delayed pricing because the spreadsheets were too unwieldy to produce real-time pricing, Soukhorado said.
"Best execution" analysis-making sure the member gets the best product, rate, and lock period-was also subject to inaccurate rate inputs and human judgment, she added.
And if Soukhorado wanted to customize profit margins, she had to do so manually within each individual mortgage product.
In all, "creating the daily rate sheet was complicated and it was easy to make mistakes," she said.
But things changed about one year ago when Soukhorado started using the web-based RateSheet Generator, provided by Sollen Technologies in Dallas.
"With RateSheet Generator, the rates are automatically available from our different investors and shown in prebuilt templates," she said. "We can add products or change formats."
Best execution is automatic, she continued. A "sort" feature allows Soukhorado to view programs by best price for each rate and lock period.
Orange County's CU can also control profit margins "with the click of a mouse" by adjusting prices for each investor, instead of manually adjusting each product, before exporting the template to the daily rate sheet, Soukhorado said.
"Members are getting accurate, real-time pricing," she said, in a process that takes her about one-half hour per day, down from one hour per day.
One feature Soukhorado would like to see added to RateSheet Generator is automated, risk-based adjustments to individual loans, she said. Currently, she manually adjusts for risk within an Excel template.
Adjusted pricing is available, but through Sollen's flagship product, Lender Online, according to Mason Rees, sales and marketing director at Sollen. The web-based program-eligibility and pricing system also allows for loan searches among multiple lenders and channels and will display validated products.
"Credit unions can bring back fully adjusted pricing in an average of less than seven seconds," Rees said. Lender Online can be interfaced with other LOS and provides prospect management tools and the ability to submit lock requests, as well.
"We're providing many alternatives for members to access outside loan programs, as well as internal products side-by-side, and help credit unions become competitive and efficient in the mortgage industry," said Rees.
more
Read more about marketing tools at cujournal.com and search the following terms in the archive:
Tech Allows Smaller CU To Become Aggressive Mortgage Competitor
Cambrian CU Speeds Up Mortgages Using BPM Technology
Automation Helps CU Double Home Equity Loans
For Info On The Story:
* www.orangecountyscu.org
* www.sollen.com
