Notarize announced at its 2021 Rewired for Real Estate conference Wednesday that it is opening up its platform to independent notaries to use in their remote online notarization (RON) transactions.
Notarize is piloting its program launch in May in two states: Tennessee and Washington. After the initial pilot, the company plans to quickly roll it out to additional states over the summer. By the end of 2021, Notarize expects this platform function should be available to notaries in all 31 RON-approved states.
At the end of last year, Notarize announced it would open its platform up to notaries and allow them to manage their teams with performance reporting, ongoing training and notary commission expiration tracking. Opening the platform allowed independent notaries to join the platform and boost their earnings at a time when in-person notarizations posed a serious health risk.
But Notarize said opening the platform was just the beginning, adding that there are millions of entrepreneurial notary business owners across the country who want a partner that will help them move their business online and grow their brand to new heights.
Now, the new opening will allow notaries to serve their client base through the Notarize platform, bring their own business onto the Notarize Platform and convert their business and relationships to a digital platform.
“The 4.4 million notaries in the US are some of the most entrepreneurial, driven and diligent professionals in the US, and in-line with that, notaries are constantly looking for ways to expand their business, self-market, grow their income and build/strengthen preferred partnerships,” Notarize said in its release. “The online market is swiftly gaining traction in facilitating that, and now Notarize will give them access to their own dedicated business account where they will be able to manage and execute their own RON transactions in compliance with their state laws.”
Notarize recorded a surge of growth in 2020 with annual growth of about 600 percent. And last month, Notarize announced a new $130 million Series D funding round led by Canapi Ventures, Citi Ventures, Wells Fargo, Alphabet’s independent growth fund, Capital G and additional strategic investors.
“The notary will soon be able to manage your notary business and complete remote online notarizations for your customers through the Notarize platform, forever rewiring the way that you work as a notary,” Ashley Spiess, Notarize senior director of operations and strategy said at the event. “This will allow you to transform your business and its model.”
Notarize CEO Pat Kinsel
Overall, adoption of RON soared 547 percent in 2020, according to a survey from the American Land Title Association of major vendors working in the RON space.
“America’s leading businesses continue to invest in a digital future, and we expect that to continue even after things return to some semblance of normal,” Notarize CEO Pat Kinsel said in his keynote address. “In 2017, people thought we were crazy when we completed the country’s first ever online real estate closing. Today, with more than 250,000 transactions completed, we’re working with many of the country’s leading real estate companies, title companies and mortgage lenders to go beyond the digital closing to fundamentally improve the process for everyone.”
