The MISMO Winter Summit was jam-packed with insightful discussions, forward-looking sessions and it was also a celebration of MISMO’s 25-year anniversary of industry collaboration and standards development. Our team led 15 workgroup sessions, covering the latest standards in mortgage technology, credit reporting, and much more. Let's dive into the key insights and takeaways from the summit:
Embracing New Technologies
A common theme of the summit was the focus on new technologies to streamline the mortgage process. Discussions and sessions highlighted the importance of enhancing security and transparency in transactions. The integration of AI, blockchain, and other emerging technologies is not merely a vision of the future, but a reality poised to reshape the mortgage landscape.
Legislative Developments- The VA Home Loan Awareness Act of 2023
The proposed legislation brings greater awareness to the loan products available to Veterans by incorporating a disclaimer on the Uniform Residential Loan Application (URLA) to increase awareness of the direct and guaranteed home loan programs of the Department of Veterans Affairs. The VA Home Loan Awareness Act of 2023, detailed in a DS News story, is a bipartisan effort that underscores the industry's continued efforts to highlight the VA home loan benefits available to those who have served our country.
New Initiatives: MISMO Certifications, Fee Modernization and Loan Servicing Data Standard
MISMO announced its new certification opportunities, including the MISMO Certified Consultants program and PhoenixTeam is proud to be an early applicant. “The new MISMO Certifications are designed for professionals and technology providers who demonstrate their commitment to effective business practices through their expertise in, and adherence to, MISMO standards,” said David Coleman, President of MISMO. “As adoption of MISMO standards continues to accelerate, we have more industry partners interested in pursuing the variety of certifications we are offering.”
MISMO is seeking participants for a NEW Fee Modernization Workgroup! VA announced plans for a collaborative effort with other federal housing agencies to develop a loan servicing data standard – more to come!
More Insights from the Sessions: AI, Credit Reporting, FHFA and SMART Docs®
The Emerging Tech Community of Practice session debuted an Emerging Tech updates segment that included trends, articles, and projections about emerging technologies such as AI and Blockchain.
The Artificial Intelligence panel discussion provided an engaging conversation around “The Missing Middle” and how to bridge the gap between ‘human only activity’ and ‘machine only activity’. Brian Stucky from Rocket Mortgage refers to this as “The Missing Middle.” Human only activities include components such as leadership, teamwork, empathy, judgement, and social skills. Machine only activities include accuracy, speed, scalability, quantitative capabilities, and iteration. The “missing middle” are hybrid activities that can train, explain, sustain, and interact. The implementation involves leveraging AI to perform tasks that don't require human intervention, such as interpreting loan documents and assisting with origination systems. As a result, bankers are obtaining answers approximately 70% faster.
The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) shared an update on what it learned during recent stakeholder forums discussing how data digitization might drive transparency, increase access, fairness, affordability, and sustainability in mortgage lending. The stakeholder forums, focused on historical data and sequencing of events, had broad industry participation. FHFA acknowledged the industry preference for “big bang” vs. a phased approach implementation of the credit score changes. It also reiterated movement of the bi-merge implementation timeline and expect to announce upcoming FHFA stakeholder forms by the end of January. Potential topics for future forums may include Gaming, Fair Lending, Cost to Consumers and Consumer Disclosure.
Although the implementation date for the credit score changes is pending, the Credit Reporting CoP continued their effort to develop implementation guidance of the MISMO standard and the representation of the FICO 10T and Vantage Score 4.0.
The use of SMART Docs®, remains a focus with the introduction of Version 3 which introduces the ability to verify data and documents while also being tamper evident.
Looking Ahead
We are grateful for the insights gained and more excited to put them into practice as we continue to execute our federal and commercial clients’ value delivery goals.
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