November 17, 2008
Cogent Road Launches Business Spaces for the Mortgage Industry
- Automated communications platform offered as Software as a Service takes mortgage lenders paperless without hardware or software installations -
(SAN DIEGO) Cogent Road, a provider of Internet-based applications for the mortgage industry, announced the launch of Business Spaces, the company’s new collaborative document management system.
In addition to a fully interactive, end-to-end e-mortgage platform, Business Spaces automates work processes by delivering documents, tracking their status and notifying key workgroups of issues that may delay closing.
The moment a loan officer orders a credit report, a Business Space is created and the applicant is notified via e-mail. The loan applicant enters a private, secured environment through which he or she can view, e-sign or upload documents directly into the Business Space via computer, fax or an easy-to-use virtual printer. The borrower can also communicate using micro-blogs and discussion threads integrated in different areas within the Business Space. With automatic audit logging, all borrower actions are effectively tracked for compliance purposes.
If the loan progresses, the Business Space evolves into a true collaborative workspace enabling communication among both external and internal partners, with the loan officer able to invite such third-party partners as title agents, notary agents, appraisers and real estate agents into the Business Space. Parties may contribute relevant documents and dialog to the Business Space, and while communicating, photographs of all the parties involved are shown for a virtual face-to-face business transaction. However, the loan officer remains in total control of what the external partners can actually view. The process yields a highly interactive yet confidential business transaction.
In addition to increased efficiencies and elimination of overnight shipping charges, an established Business Space enables originators to strengthen their relationships by expanding their brand using corporate logos and photo enhanced profiles of all business partners assisting on the applicant’s loan. This feature enables a more active and desirable customer service connection between the applicant and loan originator.
Business Spaces also offers one-click order and delivery of state-specific disclosures with full e-signature capability. Should the loan applicant decline the e-signature option or fail to enter the Business Space within a predetermined amount of time, bar coded hardcopies are automatically delivered for ink signing. The signed documents can be automatically uploaded via fax or mailed back to the lender and scanned into the borrower’s Business Space.
“In addition to efficient document management, we wanted Business Spaces to eliminate document shipping charges by both pushing documents outward as well as collecting them from external sources,” said William DiPaolo, managing partner of Cogent Road. “And most importantly, we designed Business Spaces to foster collaboration between the loan officer and all external business partners connected to the loan. In this way, the potential issues can be proactively addressed and the loan applicant receives the highest level of service.”
Business Spaces uses a Software as a Service model, which means clients can be up and running immediately because the only technical requirement is an Internet connection. All software and loan documents are secured in Cogent Road’s data center, which undergoes third-party security audits each year. The data center is staffed 24/7, boasts biometric scanning, contains waterless fire prevention systems, a 100 percent power uptime guaranty and multiple redundancies.
About Cogent Road
Cogent Road develops Internet-based applications for the mortgage industry, such as Funding Suite(R), the industry's first, true Credit Management Platform. Currently utilized by more than 30,000 mortgage professionals nationwide, Funding Suite helps clients qualify more applicants with its unique Intelligent Credit Report and protect applicant data via data suppression and computer access restrictions. For mid to large-sized clients, Funding Suite also offers robust user-level access controls and detailed cost accounting. For more information about Cogent Road, visit www.cogentroad.com. For more about Funding Suite visit www.fundingsuite.com.