Matt Clarke
Churchill Mortgage [1] announced Tuesday a partnership with the technology provider Infosys [2]to create Churchill Next.
Matt Clarke, CFO and COO, of Churchill Mortgage, told DS News that this partnership will help create a “brand new mortgage banking platform to position us for the technology requirements of the future and reducing costs.”
“In the 17 years I've been in this business, the cost to put loans on the books has gone up every single year. New technology and margin compression created by emerging competitors are the key drivers to this unsustainable trend,” Clarke said.
Churchill states it will work with Infosys to re-engineer its processes and dynamically change the way it does business into the future. When discussions with Infosys began in June 2019 it was clear both organizations shared the mutual desire to serve the mortgage industry in a unique and transformational way.
“Churchill Mortgage has built a reputation in the marketplace as a trustworthy, full-service mortgage company,” said Mohit Joshi, President of Infosys. “They are taking a significant step in providing value for their customers by not only making it less expensive to obtain a mortgage, but also leveraging emerging technologies to transform the mortgage business and make it increasingly customer-centric. We look forward to bringing this next chapter forward together.”
Clarke said Infosys currently has around 225,000 employees across the world—35,000 in the U.S.—and is sitting on over $2 billion in capital.
Clarke said Churchill has used traditional outsourcing to handle seasonal increases in business without having to bring on too many additional employees. Outsourcing allowed Churchill to close more than 9,000 loans in 2019 with the full-time capacity of roughly 7,000.
“It's a huge win for our people. It's a huge win for our future."
“Outsourcing was helpful in that it helped us to close the extra gap, but it was expensive and not as efficient as we had hoped. Looking forward, we see no reason why we can’t do twice the loans with the same employee pool. We feel this partnership is the key to mastering efficiency while also optimizing the client experience,” Clarke said.
Churchill’s partnership with Infosys will pair a variety of technology and back-office personnel with Infosys’ process engineers, technologists, artificial intelligence and automation engines and the full capabilities of one of the largest technology companies in the world to create Churchill Next.
“It's a huge win for our people. It's a huge win for our future. It's going to equip us with the technology capabilities and resources we need to compete against other massive mortgage bankers and fintechs,” he said.
Clarke said the goal with Churchill Next is to drive down the cost to put loans on the books by 30%.
Churchill Next will launch in March and Clarke said the release will then be followed by the “elimination of any mundane tasks” in our processes through either technology, automation, artificial intelligence, or a global workforce.
“There's no reason to have processors or underwriters – who are experts at managing portfolios of risk—spend any time at all managing data within a system. Eliminating routine data entry and management will dramatically increase volumes without adding more employees. Essentially, we will enable our operations team to focus more on their core expertise and capabilities.” Clarke said.