Sept/Oct 2021 Reverse Mortgage Magazine

RM: Why is Celink’s borrower portal such a big deal for borrowers? SD: Having 24/7 access to financial data over the internet has become the norm. Most of our borrowers are used to the convenience of managing their financial accounts online. Until the portal was up, borrowers could find information on their mortgages from monthly statements or by calling us. If they needed forms, they had to call Celink and wait for the forms to be sent to them. Our portal provides a self-service functionality for borrowers to access their information from any device at any time. They can request funds from their line of credit or obtain a payoff quote, all without ever needing to call us or submit a request by mail. RM: What prompted its development? How long did it take to create? How many people were involved? SD: Celink adopted a mission that emphasized providing technologically advanced servicing solutions. The portal was one such solution. Borrowers were clearly interested in having online access, so we rolled up our sleeves. The development team was small but experienced in website development and cloud technologies. Lots of people across Celink helped us with functionality, compliance, testing and so on. The portal was developed and launched in under five months. In this short time, we built many useful features, including access to loan data, statements, forms, commonly asked questions and the ability to upload forms. To build it so fast, it helped that once I joined Celink we began active adoption of Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud. We leveraged cutting-edge tools that allowed us to develop quickly and to deliver powerful functionality, such as real-time data access. RM: What underlying goals were you hoping to achieve in creating the borrower portal? Did you rely on borrower feedback during the development process? SD: We wanted to give borrowers 24/7 access to information, including educational materials about reverse mortgages, as well as real-time information about their own reverse mortgage. We wanted to give them the ability to transact and obtain and submit documents online. We wanted to raise the security of communication, compared to traditional methods, like email. All that was aimed at creating an immediate way for borrowers to access their mortgage information and increase borrower satisfaction. Once we had the first version of the portal, we began planning for usability studies. We conducted a number of interviews with borrowers to solicit their feedback. Overwhelmingly, the feedback has been that they love the website simplicity and how user-friendly it is. RM: What percentage of Celink borrowers are using the portal? SD: By now, we have seen many thousands of borrowers register on the portal, and we continue to see active registrations. Borrowers who signed up use it for getting to their statements, finding loan information, requesting line of credit advances and requesting payoff quotes. We plan to grow the user base by sharing information when borrowers communicate with us, or through statements and other methods of communication. Eventually, we hope to get over half of our portfolio using the portal. RM: When did you launch the portal? SD: It launched in January of 2020. Since then, we’ve added features, such as requesting line of credit advances and payoff quotes. We’ve also enhanced security fea- tures and made the website Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 compliant, so that people with disabilities can use the portal. RM: As servicing technology evolves, what additional features would you like to see added to the portal? For example, what about making a loan payment online? SD: We will aim to offer borrowers the ability to conduct online most, if not all, activities that they currently perform by paper, fax or phone. Right now, borrowers can make payments by sending a check or over the phone, but our goal will be to offer them the digital way of doing this through the portal. We also want to offer them the ability to receive email notifications about account activity. For example, when new account statements show up on the portal or about recent changes to their account, or maybe when the status of their line of credit advance request has changed, they will be able to receive these email notifications. We would also like to offer the ability to sign documents online. From the Top continued on page 14 From the Top REVERSE MORTGAGE / SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2021 13