Web-based reverse mortgage origination platform QuantumReverse has added a document management feature to its offering, in an effort to respond to the growing prevalence of businesses implementing work-from-home policies while maintaining the ability to allow multiple people to work on the same loan at the same time. This is according to an interview with QuantumReverse founder and CEO Thomas Martignoni conducted by RMD.

The new feature is designed to loosen what Martignoni calls a “bottleneck” on the reverse mortgage origination process, which has traditionally been solved by incorporating external document management systems on top of some loan origination systems (LOS) being used. By creating a document management element within this new reverse mortgage-specific LOS, QuantumReverse has aimed to create an option more individually tailored to the specific requirements of the business, he says.

Currently a cumbersome process

In describing the need for an integrated document management system as a component of the new reverse mortgage LOS, Martignoni describes what he understands as a bit of a convoluted and cumbersome process for originators, brokers and underwriters to go through in some cases, which allowed him to identify a market opportunity on the software side for his new system.

“Some lenders use a document management system where they upload documents. However, such systems are completely disconnected from [some existing] origination platforms, which don’t cross over to brokers, for instance,” Martignoni describes. “So, if a lender has its own document management system, and the broker — even if they have the same document management system — it doesn’t connect.”

For the document management systems which are being used currently, an additional issue is that some may not be particularly well adapted to the specifics of the reverse mortgage origination process, he says. On top of that, some originators or brokers still find that necessary documents have to be scanned, printed and sorted by hand multiple times.

“They send out a disclosure package to the borrower, the borrower signs it, it comes back,” he says. “And then inside the scanned disclosure package, there is a copy of the driver’s license and the counseling certificate and maybe a tax return, just some documents are there in the same package. What they often do then is they print that stuff out again, and they start to sort it by hand, and scan it again.”

Often what also happens for users of some systems is that documents are printed and rescanned so many times that it can actually make those documents difficult to read, he says. On top of these practical difficulties with some current processes, many professionals and product specialists are working from home, and organizing documents in this way is not conducive to working collaboratively, Martignoni says.

How it works

By implementing a collaborative document management system that allows for multiple collaborators to work on the same loan simultaneously while also being updated in real time, the new offering can be fully integrated into the origination process instead of requiring multiple collaborators to bounce around between different processes, Martignoni says.

“[Our system] works independently of the channel, from broker to principal agent to the closing agent,” Martignoni says. “Documents are indexed automatically. eSigned or wet-signed signatures are validated automatically. Documents are searchable by name or can be accessed from within the respective location of a loan.”

Tailoring something to the needs of reverse mortgage origination and all of the different qualifiers that task can take — between HECM, proprietary, refinance, purchase, etc. — requires specific adaptation to the kinds of documents are required for a particular transaction, which is only further complicated by the State that the loan is originated in, Martignoni says. Additional variation is added by different LOS systems which can be employed.

“You need to teach the system all these nuances: loan type, what document the system should look for, and possibly make an alert [for an instance when] a document is missing,” he says. “The system needs to be pretty smart to really do the job for you that it’s supposed to do.”

Getting those specifics to work harmoniously between the different people who have to collaborate on a loan is key to the implementation of the new system, and his software accomplishes that, Martignoni says.

“It is a non-intrusive collaborative tool,” he explains of his new product. “There is no extra effort to move documents from one system into the other; it just does the job behind the scenes. And it crosses channels: If an underwriter asks for a letter of explanation for a trust, the instance the loan officer in the broker company uploads it, it becomes searchable and accessible to all authorized users.”

Collaboration in the age of COVID

The reverse mortgage industry has not been spared from the trend of more professionals working from home due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and the implementation of document management into the QuantumReverse LOS was quickened in order to adequately respond to that new reality, Martignoni says.

“We always had the idea in mind to develop a document management platform,” he says. We kept that structure in a way where we can easily integrate it, and then when COVID struck, we decided to accelerate it. It’s even more important now, people work in different places, so you cannot just bring some documents to the person next door.”

The company is also taking the further step of making the document management element to QuantumReverse available at no additional cost for the time being, Martignoni says.

“QuantumReverse offers the document management system for free to everybody using QuantumReverse LOS until all Americans get access to a COVID vaccine,” he adds.

QuantumReverse will be demonstrating the product at RMD’s upcoming Demo Day, taking place on the heels of the virtual HEQ conference.