A large mortgage company

It starts with the CEO and CFO who typically have three main goals:

• Convert from 100% US-based support staff to overseas support staff over a period of time. Example: 100% US-based to 33% overseas staff in 24 months.
• Get to a healthier and sustainable P&L to avoid profitability issues and a medium term threat of closing doors in tough markets.
• Replace employees thru attrition; as people leave for other jobs, companies wanted to make their employees, who are often considered family, more efficient and profitable.

Next the COO and Operations get involved. They also have a few goals:

• Make sure their current support staff does not feel at risk of being replaced.
• Make each operational unit more profitable and efficient.
• Start where there is little impact on the loan officer teams. The goal is to focus where the company can save the most money while feeling little change.
• Take advantage of specialization within the operational units, resulting in the senior US-based staff able to do more.

An example starting point is with underwriting and QC support:

• As underwriters and support staff leave for other opportunities, the company brings in overseas support.
• A Jr. Underwriters can conduct the initial file review and generate the initial conditions for the Sr. Underwriter to approve. The Jr. Underwriter can also underwrite resubmissions. The Sr. underwriter might do the final review of the file once all conditions are cleared by the Jr.
• This results in Sr. Underwriters funding two to three times as many loans each month.
• Next, in this example, is the Pre-funders in the QC department. These tasks can be assigned to overseas support staff in support of the funder.

The company proves the model:

• From there, the company is able to utilize lower cost overseas staff in other areas of the company and within the loan officer team themselves.
• Overseas LOA's and Processors help their US-based operations handle more volume. Jr. Processors are able to disclose files, order the appraisal, submit the file underwriting, balance and send the CD, and coordinate with the underwriting team. This enables the US-based processor to handle all borrower communication, collecting conditions, and following up to get documentation signed.