Finicity CEO Steve Smith, writing for the Scotsman Guide, describes the benefits of a truly digital income and employment verification that flips the expectation of succes in the industry. Income and employment are the two key elements that demonstrate a borrower’s ability to manage and repay a loan. Extracting data from paystubs and matching it with permissioned bank account data results in a high-value data for lenders and much higher success rates than existing solutions. It also provides a better experience for borrowers.
Leading asset verification available in Point of Sale platform and Loan Officer portal
SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH and WOBURN, MASS.—January 13, 2020—Finicity, a provider of real-time financial data access and insights, announced that it has integrated its digital Verification of Assets solution into Volly’s Point Of Sale platform and Loan Officer portal. Volly is an industry-leading provider of SaaS-based marketing automation, CRM and POS solutions for banks and mortgage companies.
The partnership dramatically improves loan officer productivity, streamlines back-office processes, improves employee and partner experiences, enhances accuracy and reduces funding times. Finicity’s solution enables borrowers to rapidly share bank and brokerage asset data and eliminates the overly manual process of locating, downloading and uploading bank statements. It also provides a more secure process for asset verification.
“This integration brings our industry one step closer to a completely digital mortgage experience,” said Jerry Halbrook, CEO of Volly. “It also enables mortgage lenders to reduce originating costs, makes loan officers more productive and enhances the customer journey.”
“Today’s consumers expect a painless mortgage process powered by modern technology,” said Steve Smith, CEO of Finicity. “Our asset verification on Volly’s technology platform improves operational efficiency and the borrower experience.”
Finicity delivers asset verification through consumer-permissioned data, providing borrowers more control and insight over data used in the decisioning process. Finicity is known for high-quality data, which is accessed direct from financial institutions to verify asset balances, transaction data and account details.
Finicity is an authorized, integrated provider of asset verification reports for Fannie Mae’s Day 1 Certainty™ initiative and is a Freddie Mac Asset and Income Modeler (AIM) service provider.
Finicity’s verification solution is also delivered under the CRA framework, which allows borrowers to directly obtain information on reports or resolve discrepancies. Finicity’s status as a registered CRA is a symbol of its consumer-centric model as well as its dedication to the requirements of the lending space.
About Volly
Volly is powering the dream of home ownership through industry-leading technology and dynamic marketing that drives the customer journey. The Volly Platform is a fully integrated, cloud-based Software-as-a-Service platform that combines Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Point of Sale (POS), Marketing Automation and Custom Websites, all integrated with digital and print marketing capabilities and industry-leading creative marketing services. For more information, visit www.MyVolly.com or call (866) 435-7050.
About New Capital Partners
New Capital Partners (NCP) is a private equity firm headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama. NCP partners with niche, tech-enabled services companies in the healthcare, financial and business services industries. Leveraging its extensive operational experience, NCP helps create significant value in portfolio companies by focusing on one core goal: building great companies. For more information, please visit www.newcapitalpartners.com.
About Finicity
Finicity’s mission is to help individuals, families and organizations make smarter financial decisions through safe and secure access to fast, high-quality data. The company, which launched its first financial product in 2000 and has since grown to provide financial data APIs, credit decisioning tools and financial wellness solutions, partners with influential financial institutions and disruptive FinTech providers alike to give consumers a leg up in a complicated financial world. Finicity was awarded API World’s 2016 Finance API of the Year and is a 2018, 2019 HousingWire Tech100 winner. To learn more or test drive its API, visit www.finicity.com.
Steve Smith, Finicity CEO and co-founder, shares his thoughts on five key requirements that financial services providers need to emphasize to truly empower customers in this article entitled, “Financial Services Can Secure Innovation by Focusing on Trust.” He focuses on control, access, transparency, traceability and security and calls for an industry-wide commitment to enhancing each of these within the data sharing space. Read the full article here on Forbes.
Finicity provides asset verification solution to reduce process from weeks to minutes
SALT LAKE CITY, Utah and PARSIPPANY, New Jersey – October 10, 2019 – American Financial Resources, Inc. (AFR) announced today it is working together with Finicity—a leading provider of real-time financial data access and insights, to provide its business partners and their borrowers with a faster, simpler and more secure way to verify assets and income while originating loans.
American Financial Resources serves thousands of mortgage professionals nationwide with their residential financing needs through industry leading technology, a diverse program catalog, educational resources, dedicated industry experts, and dependable, best-in-class client service.
“We’re thrilled to partner with providers that simplify and accelerate the loan process for our business partners and the mortgage applicant.,” said Bill Packer, Executive VP and COO of AFR. “Finicity is at the forefront of the industry and its technology plays an important part in turning a time-intensive process into a simple, customer-friendly and therefore more satisfying experience for borrowers and their loan officers.”
Through Finicity’s verification platform, borrower assets can be confirmed within minutes, without the need to find, copy and scan piles of paper documents for verification. This can reduce the mortgage origination time by more than a week while eliminating the hassle of paper documents and manual processes.
“Today’s consumers expect simple, rapid experiences on their computers and phones, and the mortgage process should be no different,” said Steve Smith, CEO of Finicity. “AFR is embracing their role as a mortgage industry innovator, focused on meeting the expectations of the next gen consumer.”
Finicity is an authorized, integrated provider of asset verification reports for Fannie Mae’s Day 1 Certainty and Freddie Mac’s Asset and Income Modeler (AIM) programs. Finicity recently announced a breakthrough in digital verification of income and employment. The solution uses its patent-pending TXVerify™ technology to extract a borrower’s pay statement data from the paystub and then cross-verifies that key data with their income transactions from their financial institutions for a real-time picture of an applicant’s income and employment status.
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About American Financial Resources:
American Financial Resources, Inc. (AFR) is the leading FHA 203(k) lender for sponsored originations in the country and an innovator in the construction and renovation lending area, as well as being ranked among the nation’s leading mortgage lenders. AFR utilizes the latest technology and delivers educational resources to mortgage brokers, loan originators and their customers. American Financial Resources, Inc. is an Equal Housing Lender: Lender NMLS 2826 at nmlsconsumeraccess.org. For more information, visit http://www.afrcorp.com/.
About Finicity:
Finicity’s mission is to help individuals, families and organizations make smarter financial decisions through safe and secure access to fast, high-quality data. The company, which launched its first financial product in 2000 and has since grown to provide financial data APIs, credit decisioning tools and financial wellness solutions, partners with influential financial institutions and disruptive FinTech providers alike to give consumers a leg up in a complicated financial world. Finicity was awarded API World’s 2016 Finance API of the Year and is a 2018, 2019 HousingWire Tech100 winner. To learn more or test drive its API, visit www.finicity.com.
Digital Journal interviews Finicity co-founder and CEO Steve Smith about Finicity’s new Verification of Income and Employment solution. Steve explains how the new digital verification solution works and how it improves on legacy VOIE solutions. He shares the nuts and bolts of how this solution shaves an average of 12-14 days off the verification process and delivers a success rate that is three times higher than legacy options. Read the full Q&A on Digital Journal.
Company Demonstrates Breakthrough Solution for Verification of Income and Employment
LAS VEGAS — Sept. 25, 2019 – Finicity announced today that it won the LendingTree Innovation Challenge Best in Show award at Source Media’s Digital Mortgage Conference 2019 for its Verification of Income and Employment (VOIE) with TXVerify™ solution.
For the second year in a row, the LendingTree Innovation Challenge highlighted innovation in the digital mortgage ecosystem at the conference which was held September 23-24 at the Wynn Las Vegas. The challenge featured 36 live demos showcasing the mortgage industry’s most innovative digital technologies.
“We are truly thrilled by the reception of our VOIE solution,” said Steve Smith, CEO and co-founder of Finicity. “This award is another acknowledgement that income and employment verification was ripe for innovation. Until now, no one had figured out how to deliver an automated solution that addressed the majority of the market.”
A panel of three judges scored all the demo presentations. Finicity received the high honor by receiving a score of nine out of 10 from all three judges for its inventive approach to verification of income and employment. Additionally, attendees were able to weigh in through an audience voting process.
Finicity’s VOIE solution digitally extracts a borrower’s pay statement data from a paystub and then cross-verifies that key data with direct deposit transactions within their bank accounts. Enabled by its patent-pending TXVerify™ technology, this detailed vetting process creates a real-time picture of an applicant’s income and employment for fast, accurate reports. The solution does this using consumer-permissioned data – direct from banks – along with a scan, photo or PDF of a borrower’s paystubs for the most current and accurate verification. This process significantly shifts the current paradigm from a mostly manual process to one that is fully digital, all while reducing fraud and increasing confidence in the underwriting process.
Sharing the Best in Show award this year was CoreLogic.
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About Finicity:
Finicity’s mission is to help individuals, families and organizations make smarter financial decisions through safe and secure access to fast, high-quality data. The company, which launched its first financial product in 2000 and has since grown to provide financial data APIs, credit decisioning tools and financial wellness solutions, partners with influential financial institutions and disruptive FinTech providers alike to give consumers a leg up in a complicated financial world. Finicity was awarded API World’s 2016 Finance API of the Year and is a 2018, 2019 HousingWire Tech100 winner. To learn more or test drive its API, visit www.finicity.com.
Congresswoman Anna Eshoo once said, “Innovation is the calling card of the future.” Finicity operates with a similar eye to the future, each new data solution taking us closer to the future that we imagine. Our vision includes truly empowered consumers with full control over their personal data and common data sharing standards that facilitate creative problem solving within secure frameworks. Our work with the Financial Data Exchange (FDX) is evidence of our investment in this future. We know that the work we do today will impact the world we live in tomorrow.
We are, therefore, pleased to have entered into a direct data agreement with U.S. Bank. Finicity and U.S. Bank share an unwavering commitment to consumers and to protecting their personal financial data. This agreement is the result of a collaborative partnership focused on designing superior consumer experiences and on setting the stage for the future of data sharing.
This represents our continued efforts in leading the development of next-gen data access solutions and it will translate into multiple meaningful benefits for U.S. Bank customers. These benefits include increased security, reliability, and control. For U.S. Bank customers, permissioning their data will now be easier and more secure, the ultimate in customer experience. The relationship centers on an application programming interface (API) that provides rapid access to data through a secure tokenized process. Because of this tokenization, U.S. Bank customers will not have to share their credentials with anyone other than U.S. Bank.
Integration will require minimal effort for U.S. Bank customers. The direct API experience will simply redirect them to a familiar login experience from U.S. Bank. Emphasizing the importance of consumer control, each customer will ultimately have access to a permissioning portal where they can access, manage, and restrict the sharing of their financial data. Consumer education and consent are at the core of this data sharing agreement and inform each aspect of implementation.
Finicity is leading the financial data access market by entering into these data-sharing agreements (see our announcements with USAA, Wells Fargo, Fidelity, Capital One, and JPMorgan Chase). We currently maintain market coverage of approximately 95% of U.S. deposits and investments under management and, at this writing, 40% of that coverage will be based on direct API access. Our leadership in the direct data agreement space reflects our commitment to partnering with banks to provide the best data and the best experience for our shared customers.
While this agreement with U.S. Bank comes after much research, thought, and dialogue, it is not the end of the journey. Rather, it is the beginning—a gateway to new opportunities, new products, and new possibilities.
Product sets new benchmark for income and employment assessment success, while adding to Finicity’s suite of digital verification solutions
SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – September 18, 2019 – Finicity, a leading provider of real-time financial data access and insights, announced today the release of its new Verification of Income and Employment (VOIE) solution using patent-pending TXVerifyTM technology that will speed up borrower verifications and further advance the industry shift toward a fully digital experience.
The Finicity VOIE solution digitally extracts a borrower’s pay statement data from the paystub and then cross-verifies that key data with their income transactions from their financial institutions. Enabled by its TXVerify technology, this detailed vetting process creates a real-time picture of an applicant’s income and employment for fast, accurate reports. The solution does this by leveraging the highest value data – direct from banks – along with a scan, photo or PDF of a borrower’s paystubs. This process significantly shifts the current paradigm from a mostly manual process to one that is fully digital, all while reducing fraud and increasing confidence in the underwriting process.
“Our VOIE is expected to become the new gold standard of income and employment verification,” said Steve Smith, Finicity CEO. “We know it will be met with fast adoption by key industry players who aim to be on the cutting edge of lending technology. With VOIE building upon our current Verification of Assets solution, lenders will now be able to use Finicity as a one-stop-shop for digital verification.”
Legacy solutions have been marked with low success rates and at times return outdated information. Such solutions rely on payroll data supplied by employers, many of whom do not report information frequently. Additionally, employers that report data usually represent only the largest enterprises, while the majority of Americans work for small to mid-sized businesses. Finicity’s VOIE technology accesses real-time data gathered directly from an employee’s bank accounts. Finicity uses direct deposit payroll data, which represents over 90% of American workers, to dramatically improve the success rate of an automated income and employment verification. While the success rate for existing automated solutions hovers around 15% to 25%, Finicity’s VOIE solution is anticipated to provide successful income and employment verification coverage of over 70%. Digital verifications can shave as much as 12-14 days off the origination process, helping to push the industry to a rapid closing with increased accuracy, while improving profitability.
Industrial Strength
While available to lenders servicing all credit decisioning markets such as auto, personal loans and credit cards, the Finicity VOIE solution was designed to stand up to the highest levels of scrutiny and stringent requirements of the U.S. mortgage market. Because this market involves high dollar decisioning, strict regulatory oversight, and demanding investors – including government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) – it is considered the ultimate proving ground for credit decisioning processes and products. Finicity’s VOA report and data already power the vast majority of digital asset verifications in the mortgage market due to their high data quality and certified connections to the broadest range of financial institutions. Finicity’s VOIE solution builds on this technical and data leadership track record.
Working with Freddie Mac
Freddie Mac Loan Product Advisor® asset and income modeler (AIM) leverages data from third-party service providers, like Finicity, to automate the manual processes of assessing borrower assets and income to simplify the loan origination process, drive efficiency and improve the experience for lenders and borrowers.
Today, AIM leverages Finicity technology to obtain data for borrower asset assessment and direct deposit income assessment (limited release). By adding the Finicity VOIE offering to AIM (limited release), it augments direct deposit information with paystub data to further help expand a lender’s ability to more easily assess borrower capacity, reduce their documentation burden and save time and money.
“Adding Finicity’s VOIE solution is the next step in the evolution of AIM,” said Kevin Kauffman, Senior Director of Technology Integration at Freddie Mac. “And our partnership with Finicity has helped to create a waterfall-like approach by adding paystub data to our AIM capability using accurate and verifiable data that meet our underwriting standards. This means more opportunities for representation and warranty relief and greater cost savings for lenders all while delivering a better lending experience to borrowers.”
What the Industry is Saying
Finicity customers and partners are already weighing in on VOIE:
Quicken Loans
“We are always looking for ways to simplify the mortgage process, taking away the apprehension that can come with a complicated financial transaction,” said Heather Lovier, Executive Vice President of Client Experience for Quicken Loans. “To help achieve this, we create game-changing innovations and engage with forward-thinking partners like Finicity. VOIE is a critical next step in the evolution of the mortgage process and we look forward to seeing it more widely implemented throughout the industry.”
Experian
“Consumer permissioned data, like Finicity’s new VOIE and Experian Boost, empowers consumers to take control,” said Michele Bodda, general manager at Experian Mortgage. “This innovative digitization of data and analytics is an important step in modernizing the mortgage process and enabling a solution that helps streamline the process for more borrowers than ever before.”
Ellie Mae
“Source validation solutions are increasingly important for our customers who seek faster, more convenient digital application processes,” said Parvesh Sahi, senior vice president of Business Development for Ellie Mae. “In July we announced that Finicity’s digital Verification of Assets (VoA) solution was available through our Encompass Digital Lending Platform. With their launch of their VOIE solution, they are further improving digital verification solutions for a faster and more accurate process.”
MortgageHippo
“We’re very excited to offer Finicity’s new VOIE solution to our lender clients. This solution will provide a variety of benefits for both lenders and borrowers,” said Michael Salichs, president & COO of MortgageHippo. “Not only will it reduce manual work and fraud for our lenders, but borrowers will see faster closing times, less frustration and greater accuracy.”
SimpleNexus
“Digital lending solutions are increasingly important for lenders who seek faster, more convenient application processes,” said Matt Hansen, CEO, Simple Nexus. “In the future, this process can help borrowers through a verification experience that is 100% digital without any of the tedious manual labor required today. Finicity’s Verification of Income and Employment solution helps lead the industry much closer to that goal.”
Synergy One
“We have seen great success over the past year in offering a consumer-enabled digital asset verification as a key part of simplifying the mortgage application and approval process,” said Steve Majerus, president of Synergy One Lending. “Income and employment is the next step in digital verifications and we like the innovation Finicity is demonstrating with the introduction of their solution.”
Vellum Mortgage
“Fincity’s VoIE program is a great leap forward in the digital verification of income and employment,” said Patrick Gardner, principal Vellum Mortgage. “Not only is the borrower experience faster and simpler, it improves processing and underwriting times as well. Partnering with Finicity has been critical in Vellum’s goals of implementing technology that delivers results for our customers.”
See It In Action
Finicity will be demoing the solution at:
- Freddie Mac Connect 2019 in Washington D.C. on September 19th.
- Digital Mortgage Conference in Las Vegas on September 23rd in demo session #3.
To learn more about Finicity’s digital verification suite, visit https://www.finicity.com/credit-decisioning/.
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About Finicity: Finicity’s mission is to help individuals, families and organizations make smarter financial decisions through safe and secure access to fast, high-quality data. The company, which launched its first financial product in 2000 and has since grown to provide financial data APIs, credit decisioning tools and financial wellness solutions, partners with influential financial institutions and disruptive FinTech providers alike to give consumers a leg up in a complicated financial world. Finicity was awarded API World’s 2016 Finance API of the Year and is a 2018, 2019 HousingWire Tech100 winner. To learn more or test drive its API, visit www.finicity.com.
HousingWire interviews Steve Smith, 2018 Vanguard award winner and CEO of Finicity, about his views on the challenges facing the lending industry. Steve discusses how being consumer-centric drives business success, how digitization can reduce lending friction points, and the best first steps for going digital. Read the full story on HousingWire.
Nick Thomas, Finicity co-founder and Chief Innovation Officer, chats with FinTech Newscast on episode 55 of their podcast. They discuss best-practices for working with consumer-permissioned data, including security and consumer access, while fostering innovation and growth. You can listen to the episode here.