Efficiencies Cascade as eLoanFolder Spreads Within American Home Bank.

American Home Bank

American Home Bank, a Pennslyvania-based, privately held national bank and SwiftSend LoanDocs customer, sees SwiftSend eLoanFolder as an important tool that will help them reach their goal of paperless loan processing.

Birgitta Natale, AVP of Operations and Fullfillment for American Home Bank first learned about SwiftView, Inc.'s eLoanFolder, she realized it could help the bank with its goal of making underwriting and other processes paperless. But knowing that change works best in small steps and when users see the benefits, she was concerned about avoiding disruption in its implementation. Her solution was to implement the eFolder initially for relatively minor uses, and then build from there. Birgitta explains:

Implementation #1: Speeding up post-closing

"We do a lot of joint ventures and acquisitions, so we receive over-nighted or faxed post-closing docs from a number of remote locations, which we then image. One location in particular would often be too busy, especially at the end of the month, to get them out to us for a couple of days. As a result, we could be at risk of getting the loans to investors later than committed, tying up our own capital and even risking rate expirations, which could be quite costly to us."

"It occurred to me this might be a good use of the eFolder. We set up the remote operation to scan and upload into one of our eFolders. Not only does this save money, but they are now able to keep current, and everybody's end-of-month stress is less. Now that people see the benefit, we are rolling out this procedure to all locations"

Implementation #2: Preventing conditions from getting lost

"Conditions have always been faxed in to underwriters. But frequently they would get mixed in with other people's faxes, or get misfiled. Then it's like looking for a needle in a haystack all over the building, and the one thing we don't have enough of—time gets wasted. Not to mention, borrower's private information shouldn't be sitting on a fax machine for everyone to see. So each underwriter now has an eFolder that only they can access, and faxes and uploads into the folder don't ever get lost anymore. Plus, now no one can claim they sent something in "last week"- it's either there or it isn't, and if it is, it's date/ time stamped."

Implementation #3: Audit trails and security

"Funding requests would also be faxed in and sometimes get lost… not good having people sitting at closing and not getting funded. Using the eFolder eliminates that possibility. It also provides a clear audit trail for the OCC and others—they can easily access the requests and see exactly when they were received. Our compliance people like it, too, because they're always asking about security-encryption, passwords, and so forth, and we say yes, and they're happy."

Spreading by word of mouth

"Anyhow, the idea of starting small has worked out well. The people using eLoanFolder say good things about it, and word spreads, so now their colleagues in other departments already want to use it. Now it should be pretty easy to implement in the main area our strategy calls for: we want to go paperless for the entire underwriting process. Not only will it save them time, and increase security, but by only working electronically, data integrity will be enhanced. No more working on paper and then forgetting to enter it into the computer later on."

No change in processes

"It's very important that eLoanFolder doesn't require changing any processes, because that would cause resistance—but we do the same exact processes, just no paper now. When we deploy new software, we usually hear grumbling about it. After all, we have people who've been doing their jobs for 20 years, and seen plenty of new technologies fail. But using eLoanFolder is so easy and natural that once you start using it, it's like it's been there forever… and there have been no grumblings. They would never go back to the old way, and I can't imagine it either!"

No IT help needed

"Another nice thing is that it just seems to work, and Swiftview provides any training or support if needed. But there hasn't really been any need. In fact, it's so easy and reliable that I've had no help calls from people who've forgotten how to install it. It's also a very important point that we didn't need any help from the IT department. If we had, we might not be using it yet, because they are already so busy with other projects that do require their involvement."

The Bottom Line: Efficiencies cascade as use spreads

Birgitta's boss, AR Miller, President of American Home Bank summarizes: "SwiftView's eLoanFolder is solving problems for us in terms of security, efficiency, audit trails, investor delivery, and more. But the big picture value is that it enables everything to happen in real time—no waiting so long for other people to get documents to you so you can do your work, and that time savings just cascades through the entire organization. Production is picking up because of it. We will continue to look for more ways to use it, and I'm sure our employees will find even more. That's how it is with a great product."

About SwiftSend Services and SwiftView, Inc

SwiftSend is the most widely used secure electronic document delivery service in the mortgage industry. Since 2001 it has been saving hundreds of lenders a full day and $20-25 per loan simply by replacing printing, labor, and overnight costs with secure electronic delivery. It is far more secure than email, for better Gramm, Leach, Bliley compliance.

In the past year, SwiftSend Services have expanded to include eDisclosure™-electronic delivery and signature of disclosures, and eLoanFolder™-a paperless 2-way document communications and access hub. These additional services multiply efficiencies and savings by enabling many more lender processes to be easily made paperless. Lenders no longer have to deal with productivity-robbing stacks of paper files, and can turn prospects into borrowers faster.

Founded in 1985, SwiftView, Inc. develops and markets value-added tools and services that help organizations worldwide view, print, distribute, and organize electronic documents and drawings. The company's SwiftView PCL Viewer is the mortgage industry standard, used by eight of the top ten lenders, most doc prep and title companies, and thousands of companies with millions of users in other industries worldwide. The SwiftSend Services division provides comprehensive, innovative services that enable more than 350 lenders to be more productive by eliminating unnecessary paper in their processes. Based in Portland, Ore., SwiftView, Inc. has been named one of Oregon's fastest growing companies for the past six years in a row. For more information, please visit http://www.swiftsend.com.

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