Navigating Mortgage Document Pitfalls by Jeff Picozzi

Mortgage service providers may not risk life and limb like an intrepid explorer in an action film, but they can encounter plenty of hazards generating and maintaining transactional records.

A recent survey conducted by National Mortgage News reveals that financial-industry professionals face many potential perils. Missing mortage documents, improperly scanned records, unprotected data and regulatory compliance are just a few of the most important concerns for the survey's 116 primarily senior-level mortgage professionals.

Records Management: It's a Jungle Out There

Some of the records management solutions that survey participants have previously instituted may not be meeting expectations. For instance, almost half of the respondents who manually index their own mortgage documents say they find the practice only somewhat effective.

While companies may think they're saving money by doing these tasks themselves, the costs in term of time and salaries outweigh the benefits, particularly if mismanagement or errors lead to expensive penalties. Businesses dissatisfied with their current approach should consider handing over the records management reins to a trusted partner. Its experts can provide manual and optical character recognition (OCR) indexing services to ensure that your firm is keeping accurate documents on file.

Partner Up for Information Security

Many respondents to the National Mortgage News survey also express concerns that documents may go missing during transactions. In a related finding, more than three-quarters of the survey participants deem data security extremely important when servicing mortgages.

Taken together, these results make a powerful case for engaging an outside partner. An experienced third party will be able to categorize and catalog all your mortgage documents for easy retrieval and review, as well as safeguard them against unauthorized access. A full-service partner can also ensure your documents don't fall into the wrong hands when they are no longer needed by setting up a regular schedule for secure shredding.

Managing mortgage documents may not be as dangerous as, say, scaling a sheer cliff, but firms with a solid plan and a trusted partner can put their document concerns aside and concentrate on their main mission of building their business.

If you would like to learn more about the survey results, see our infographic Navigating Mortgage Documents: It's an Adventure!

LINK:	http://blogs.ironmountain.com/2015/industry/financial-services/navigat...
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