LenderHub

Imagine a world where ‘It got lost in the mail’ is no longer a viable excuse for late or missed payments. Not only is payment processing an essential operation for any business, it is also a point of contact that directly correlates with customer satisfaction. If there was a way to increase borrower satisfaction by tweaking your payments process to a more convenient model, would you buy in?

As leaders in the mortgage lending industry, we have the distinct privilege of working directly with key decision makers at lending institutions to learn about their challenges and provide solutions. When it comes to ensuring their collateral is properly valued, lenders and servicers have been very vocal about wanting property valuations that are cost effective and offer the confidence of a field appraisal.

When you're in the business of auto lending, collateral recovery can be an expensive and risky endeavor. While no lender wants to repossess their borrowers' vehicles, sometimes it's necessary in order to recoup as much of your asset as possible. That being said, when you work with third-party recovery partners, it's critical that you ensure they have a documented code of conduct for their agents. Because these individuals are dealing directly with your borrowers and are a reflection of your financial institution, proper conduct practices are important to preserve your brand and reputation. Every organization will have a policy that is unique to their culture and company rules, but here are 7 examples of some of the prohibited behavior that you should look for in your collateral recovery partners' code of conduct.

Think back to a moment when you’ve left a restaurant, a hotel, maybe a store, and you witness a high-quality customer experience. It could’ve been a small detail or several small details, that when added up provided you, a very different experience. It’s these little experiences more and more retail shops are embracing to stand out from the crowd. The demand for high-quality experiences has spilled over into the financial services market in recent years, thanks to increased competition from traditional and non-traditional financial institutions. Now, more than ever, consumers have a wide range of banking options including loan payment options.

Everybody in lending knows that collateral recovery and vehicle repossessions are unpleasant and unenjoyable for all parties involved. Unfortunately, it's a part of business in auto lending. And as long as your financial institution and its staff are tracking collateral and assets, you'll encounter angry, hostile borrowers who will make asset collection as difficult as possible. Here are some tips for how to deal with hostile debtors when your financial institution staff, field agents, and repossession agents are trying to recover collateral.

In the everyday hustle and bustle that occurs at your financial institution, it can be easy to wander off the path and lose focus. It happened to Texans Credit Union, but they were ultimately able to regain focus, leading them back to their philosophy to generate sales through service. And focus on what’s important to them--their members!

If your financial institution works with a third-party vendor for your collections efforts, you know how important it is to ensure your partners perform at an optimal level. The vetting and on-boarding process alone can take months, so the "set it and forget it" mentality could be detrimental to the overall performance of your collections operation. To ensure your outsourced partner performs at a high level, it’s wise to understand their company procedures and establish agreed upon benchmarks to measure their performance.

When we consider the U.S. economy, we see good and bad news. The good news is that we've almost reached full employment, and consumers are feeling confident about their ability to maintain a stable income, make large purchases, and repay loans. The bad news is that confidence may be misplaced, since U.S. consumers’ credit card debt is at an all-time high, and delinquencies are rising.

An Automated Valuation Model, or more commonly known as an AVM, is a program that automatically analyzes various data points to produce an estimate on the current value of a home or property. An AVM includes:

Ah, the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA)...that ole' chestnut. There hasn't been much change to this law, which went into effect back in 1991. Clarifications have been issued—as recently as 2013—however, the core ruling hasn't shifted since inception regarding contacting a debtor using an autodialer or pre-recorded message. If you don't know what the TCPA is and how it impacts the financial services industry, you can read one of our previous blog post that covers the TCPA basics. However, in this article, we'll dive a little deeper into how a financial institution can navigate the particulars of obtaining express consent from borrowers, specifically for the purposes of contacting them on a mobile device.