In what’s shaping up to be a string of major announcements, digital notary startup Notarize revealed Tuesday it has joined forces with Fidelity National Financial.
The two companies announced the partnership Tuesday, saying in a statement that it will allow Fidelity’s agents to use Notarize’s platform for online closings. In a statement Tuesday, Notarize founder and CEO Pat Kinsel said the partnership should also “improve the closing experience for the industry.”
Pat Kinsel
“At Notarize, it’s always been our mission to serve the market at scale,” Kinsel said in the statement.
Florida-based Fidelity describes itself as the “nation’s largest title insurance company” and says that its various underwriters “collectively issue more title insurance policies than any other title company in the United States.”
Notarize also described Fidelity Tuesday as the “nation’s largest group of title companies and title insurance underwriters.” A Notarize spokesperson further added that Fidelity has 25 percent market share in the U.S. title industry. And now, Fidelity agents across the U.S. will now get access to Notarize’s suite of digital transaction tools.
As a result of that scale, Boston-based Notarize believes the partnership could increase its volume by as much as 60 percent.
Jason Nadeau
Speaking of the new partnership, Fidelity Chief Digital Officer Jason Nadeau said in a statement Tuesday that teaming up with Notarize “adds an important tool in helping us accomplish our goal of facilitating a streamlined, end-to-end digital real estate transaction.”
“We’re committed to continually expanding digital solutions for our direct offices and independent agents to help them provide consumers with a better home buying experience,” Nadeau said.
Notarize launched in 2015 and arranges video calls with notaries, who can go over and notarize documents with customers. The company has also expanded into other services, such as online refinancing, and offers products geared toward real estate agents, loan officers, title agents and others.
Notarize doesn’t limit its services to the real estate industry, but the company has seen significant recent growth in that sector. Late last month, for example, Notarize announced that it had facilitated more than $1 billion in online real estate closings since it began offering the service in late 2017.
That announcement was a major milestone for the company, but also one that it should surpass quickly; Notarize expects to have facilitated another $1 billion in closings within just a few weeks.
In the company’s statement Tuesday, it further revealed that it expects to facilitate a total of more than $2 billion in online real estate transactions in all of 2019.
For consumers who don’t want to go entirely digital, Notarize also launched “hybrid closings” last week. The service allows real estate consumers to sign some documents online while still wrapping up a deal in the traditional way at their lender’s office.
At the time of the announcement, Kinsel described hybrid closings as a kind of “stepping stone” as the industry works toward a more fully digitized model.
Consumers get access to Notarize’s services when loan officers — such as those working with any of the Fidelity’s family of title companies — begin using the company’s platform. Since its inception, Notarize has continued expanding its network of partner companies, and earlier this year said that 1,000 loan agents were using its platform.
Update: This post was updated after publication with additional information about Fidelity.
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