Who says the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s new TILA-RESPA Integrated Disclosure (TRID) rules are impossible to abide by?
Mortgage lender Network Funding recently reported that, as of the end of November 2015, more than one month after TRID had taken effect, it had originated nearly 200 TRID-compliant loans.
The firm says it could not have achieved this feat without help from loan origination system (LOS) provider LendingQB and document management technology firm Docutech.
In a case-study-like release, the three firms say they could not have met the deadline in time – nor could they have originated TRID-compliant loans out-of-the-gate – unless they had collaborated closely early in the process.
“TRID was especially difficult for LOS and document preparation companies,” says Binh Dang, president of LendingQB. “We believe our success was due to our early planning and transparent testing process with clients and vendor partners.”
Although Network Funding added some staff to its closing department to facilitate implementation of TRID, it did not experience a decrease in production volume due to TRID issues, according to the release.
The companies say “strong preparation and transparent communication” is what led to smooth implementation. LendingQB, for example, had to be early out of the gate with changes to its LOS.
“We knew it was going to be a massive project, so we began planning in early 2014,” says Thinh Nguyen-Khoa, vice president of engineering at LendingQB. “We set an internal deadline of June 2015 to give ourselves enough time for testing. We allocated our resources accordingly and created a development schedule that allowed us to complete the work in time.”
LendingQB completed the changes and began testing in June 2015. Shortly after this stage, one of LendingQB’s clients, Houston-based Network Funding, approached the firm and offered to serve as a dedicated testing partner.
With more than 40 branches nationwide and over $1.2 billion in originations, Network Funding had good reason to be proactive about testing.
“Everyone knew what a challenge it was going to be to implement TRID,” says Willie Jordan, national operations manager at Network Funding. “We realized that our LOS technology and other vendor partners were going to be crucial to our success.”
One of Network Funding’s document providers, Docutech, was invited to participate in testing and from the beginning, all three companies established clear guidelines on how the testing process would work.
“It sounds cliché, but we truly worked as a team,” says Nguyen-Khoa. “All three companies worked as a single unit with a common goal: to meet the Oct. 3 deadline. There wasn’t any time for pretense or finger pointing. The need for transparency was more important than any internal politicking.”
“Our ability to work closely with LendingQB and Network Funding in advance of the TRID implementation was central to delivering a seamless integration and fully compliant documents,” adds Ty Jenkins, CEO of Docutech. “We are confident that our clients benefit the most when we are able to work with our LOS partners to deliver innovative solutions that drive faster processing times and improve lender workflow efficiencies.”
Representatives from the three firms met at least twice per week for several months, utilizing an online project management system that notified each member on the progress of tasks in real time.
“We were able to collaborate with each other and identify who was responsible for every issue,” says Nguyen-Khoa. “We worked as a tight unit; helping each other when someone fell behind. It was a total team effort.”
“We were in constant contact with LendingQB and Docutech,” adds Jordan. “We spent countless hours testing, re-testing and then testing again. Having a vendor that was accessible and could implement recommended changes quickly was invaluable,” Jordan noted.
By the Oct. 3 implementation date, Network Funding was confident that it could produce a fully compliant TRID loan.
On Oct. 28, the company received word that its first TRID loan had been successfully closed.