Tech startup Maxwell has a new offering that’s designed to help small to midsize mortgage lenders employ machine learning to accelerate the document review process and catch mistakes before loans are underwritten.
A number of companies are bringing machine learning and artificial intelligence capabilities to bear in mortgage lending. But Denver-based Maxwell claims to have created a “first-of-its-kind” product: a web-based application that’s custom-designed for loan processors, and that integrates with the lender’s loan origination system of choice.
The new platform, Maxwell Processor Edge, offers a guided document review process, facilitates communications with borrowers and other stakeholders, and provides a task-driven workflow. Together, these capabilities allow loan processors to tackle more work while also cutting loan approval times, the company says.
John Paasonen
“What we’ve seen is that a lot of technology is focused on the underwriter,” Maxwell co-founder and CEO John Paasonen told Inman. “We said, ‘Let’s focus on the processor, they are where we’ll see the biggest lift in the process.’ ”
While underwriters typically spend two hours on a file, it may take loan processors up to 15 days to gather all the information needed to underwrite a loan, Paasonen said.
The manual operations, handwritten notes, and “stare and compare” work performed by mortgage loan processors are not only inefficient, but can introduce errors and inaccuracies, he said.
Processor Edge is the company’s latest offering to help lenders streamline the entire mortgage origination process, from taking applications all the way to selling loans to secondary market investors.
Although Maxwell offers its own point of sale, fulfillment and due diligence solutions, Processor Edge is platform agnostic; lenders can use any supported loan origination system, including Encompass by ICE Mortgage Technology.
Maxwell says lenders using its mortgage optimization platform are able to trim 13 days off the time it typically takes to close loans, and boost loan officer productivity by 15 percent.
The launch of Processor Edge follows a $52.5 million funding raise in October that Maxwell said would allow it to make hires in product, engineering, sales and marketing. The company is currently advertising nearly 30 job openings, many of which can be performed remotely.
“We are hiring in almost every function and every role,” Paasonen said. “It is a challenging environment out there (for employers) — it’s a great economy to be an employee these days.”
Although Maxwell is based in Denver, it also has hubs in Dallas and Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, and some teams work remotely, he said.
Founded in 2015, Maxwell Financial Labs Inc. and its subsidiary, Maxwell Lender Solutions Inc., do business as “Maxwell.” Maxwell has raised more than $70 million in venture funding to date, and grown its customer base to more than 300 mortgage lenders, banks, and credit unions.
This year, Paasonen said Maxwell is on track to facilitate $70 billion in mortgages on behalf of clients including American Mortgage Service Co., Churchill Mortgage, CLM Mortgage, FGMC and Credit Union of Colorado.
There are a host of competing solutions and services, including Black Knight’s Underwriter Assist, Google Cloud’s Lending DocAI, Roostify, Ocrolus and Blend. Two of the nation’s biggest lenders, UWM and Rocket Mortgage, are making their in-house mortgage origination technology available to partners.
But Paasonen is confident that Maxwell has carved out a niche by providing “actionable” technology to smaller lenders that’s easily accessible and integrated into existing systems.
Churchill Mortgage COO Matt Clarke, whose company is a beta user of Processor Edge, said in a statement that the platform frees his people up to manage risks and relationships, rather than spending their time entering and validating data.
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