In today's hyper-competitive mortgage market, the ability to close loans quickly while controlling costs isn't just an operational goal—it's a strategic imperative. Yet many banks and financial institutions remain tethered to outdated telecom infrastructures that restrict both agility and innovation.
Pennymac, a top U.S. mortgage lender and servicer, broke this mold by adopting a cloud-based, developer-friendly telephony platform that cut costs in half, accelerated loan time to close, and fortified its regulatory compliance—all while enhancing the customer experience.
Think like a tech company
The first step was to think outside the "traditional" box. While Pennymac operates within the financial services industry, its internal culture is distinctly technology-driven. Mike Hogan, Pennymac's Chief Information Officer, comes from a lengthy banking and finance technology background. "To stay competitive today, we can't rely on pre-packaged solutions. We need to proactively develop and implement custom software to address our specific challenges and opportunities," Hogan states.
Driven by this commitment to cutting-edge solutions, Hogan shared, "With a customer-first lens, we are focused on maximizing new opportunities like AI and leveraging new tech to continuously improve the customer experience." This mindset led Pennymac to a critical turning point: consolidating their legacy telecom carriers and investing in a new cloud-based telecom solution to achieve greater cost efficiency and elevate the customer experience—a win-win for all. But to realize this vision, they needed to find the right strategic solution provider.
Hidden savings unlocked
Pennymac discovered that a telecom strategy called bring your own carrier (BYOC) was the optimal way to adopt modern cloud communications. The BYOC approach unlocks the cost savings, new capabilities, and enhanced customer experiences Pennymac was looking for. They chose a provider called Bandwidth because it's known for its reliability, communications integrations, and exceptional customer support.
The result: Pennymac saved over 50 percent on their annual telecom spend by consolidating its toll-free calling via a bring your own carrier (BYOC) approach with Bandwidth, according to Gennadiy Karasev, Executive Vice President of Technology and Infrastructure at Pennymac.
Karasev and his team have passed a portion of those savings along to customers, creating a new competitive advantage in the market. "Any technology savings that translate into lower-cost services for our customers and better returns for our shareholders are a major benefit," says Karasev.
Unlocking this level of savings through a simple telecom provider change was a game-changer. "Having one relationship with Bandwidth to consolidate all of our telecom services gave us a substantial level of cost reduction providing a more comprehensive view than we had before," Karasev notes.
Enabling business results
Beyond cost savings, this modern telecom approach improved critical performance metrics like time to close for each loan. "If you can't underwrite a loan in less than 30 days, you're not being competitive in the market," says Karasev.
By choosing a cloud-based telephony platform, Pennymac also gained advanced capabilities such as sophisticated call routing and pre-built integrations with leading marketplace technologies. This allowed them to tap into rich metadata transported by IP voice calls, enhancing the customer experience and bringing new capabilities to analyze performance.
Thanks to tech-forward telephony, their customer service communication is now faster and more agile. Combined with automation, this has expedited underwriting, shortening loan finalization times. Additionally, automation now lets customers make payments 24/7 through the contact center—another time-saving, profitability-boosting enhancement.
Supporting compliance
Operating in a highly regulated industry, Pennymac leverages its new modern telecom systems to support compliance and mitigate risk. For instance, Pennymac was able to automate critical TCPA compliance checks for outbound calls, ensuring calls aren't made to anyone on the National Do Not Call Registry or outside reasonable hours. This automation minimizes the risk of fines while saving agents time.
"When the agent makes a good call, they have no idea. When they make a bad call, it fails quickly so they can move on to the next step. It's a huge time savings," shares Karasev.
The telecom secret is out
Pennymac has demonstrated how a tech-forward, performance-focused telecom strategy using a modern cloud communications provider like Bandwidth can streamline operations, improve compliance, and reinvest savings into innovative technologies that boost competitiveness in a fiercely competitive loan market. Yet, many leaders have yet to explore this opportunity.
Hogan encourages his peers to prioritize a review of their telecom infrastructure. "I'm confident they will find under-optimized elements that can be transformed for significant cost and time improvements, while improving the customer experience."
While BYOC voice systems aren't completely new, many financial institutions have yet to fully capitalize on taking control of their telecom. Karasev thinks it's a best-kept secret. He urges industry leadership to take a look at making the switch because the ROI is significant in both cost savings and customer experience.
"All our innovations are centered on the customer, whether it's improving internal processes or technology." For Pennymac, their new cloud telephony system benefits both the business and the customer.
Watch to learn more about how Pennymac and Bandwidth partnered to create new efficiencies and major cost savings.
