[David] Marc Helm could be with us again today. Marc, we wish you… Always like to have you here, but let’s get over to Allen Pollack with the AI. We… Is it an AI update now, Allen, or is it just another tech update? Tech, AI, synonymous. What you got for us?
[Allen] It’d be boring if it was just a tech update. Yeah what’s that? So what you got? Any good, even– You always come up with something that AI said that’s hilarious. Yeah, I– last week we talked about the different devices talking to each other. Yeah. I don’t have anything funny or unique this week, just some stories in the news. But, I will point out, we talked the last few weeks about originators and everybody wanting access to data, and you brought that up earlier today, David, I don’t recall if we, if you talked about that prior to the call or once we were on the call. But loan originators wanting access to their data and working side by side on personal computers. And it is becoming an issue. It is … companies do– they’re going through great lengths to get AI installed for their staff into their systems and get, autonomous versions of these engines so that you can use AI at work but not share information into the cloud and such and there’s some controls around it. Anyways people are uploading their own spreadsheets, copying their own data, and it is becoming of concern to people. And I don’t know how you control it just at the moment, but that is going on It is Let’s get into the news, unless you wanted to say anything about that News. News. Yes, I love the- All right … the news segment. First thing is wire fraud. Everything obviously we talk about has AI mixed into it. It’s just, when you hear what I say about Stratmoor, you’ll understand why. But wire fraud is now an AI problem from… This is from Rob Chrisman’s report Funding Shield Q2 2026 report, and what they basically said is that, and this is their title f- this is their title fraud analytics report They said that nearly half of all transactions in $120 billion monitored portfolio carried material wire and title-related defects CPL issues hit 47% of transactions- Wow … meaning almost every other closing had a closing protection letter problem. Wow. And they basically said AI is both innovative and fraud, and that’s from Funding Shield. So there’s some very interesting information. You wanna go check it out again. That is the Q2 2026 Wire and Title Fraud Analytics Report. All right, David, there’s a company they’re a global consulting firm. They’re actually a publicly traded company. They got into mortgage about two, three years ago or a few CINT, and they are a global technology transformation specialist consulting firm. They are certifying 1,000 engineers on Claude right inside your tech stack. So they are– they’ve joined, they are, they have, they’ve joined Anthropic’s Claude Partner Network, and they’re getting 1,000 plus of their engineers Claude-certified. Their pitch is that mortgage lenders can get- What’s those initials again? … AI tools built and shipped within one quarter- Yeah … on top of their existing tech stack with no rip and replace. Now, here’s the thing. I’m gonna read that again, David. Their pitch: Mortgage lenders can get AI tools built and shipped within one quarter on top of their existing tech stack. So it’s very true, but it’s also very dangerous because unless– We’re, we live in a world of AI slop, and unless we have the right people that have engineering background building AI tools to understand what you’re doing with the AI, where it touches something, where it delivers something, then you wind up with what becomes either AI slop or things that don’t work or can’t make the right decisions. So it’s interesting, we have to continue to educate and train people. We just have to make sure we’re educating and training the right people. Did you- But- I wanna get those initials correct. If I could. Did you say CINT? Yeah. Okay. That’s correct. I got the website. Yep, good. And it’s also from the Rob Crisman report. So if anyone gets that daily report you’ll see their article in there. Good job. All right Yeah. Let’s talk about Stratmoor, David. So they just launched what they’re calling their 2026 LO Tech Survey, but they’ve added AI. Of course they have. So what they’re saying is it’s their first module of the ’26 Technology Insight Study, and what they’re. I’m reading through a little bit of the advertising stuff here. But what they’re saying, they’re dedicating LS perception, exploring how lenders view today’s loan origination systems and how AI automation and other emerging technologies are reshaping expectations. But focused to looking at AI with LOS systems through an AI lens. So if you wanna be a part of the Stratmoor survey, you definitely wanna check that out and reach out to them or make sure you think about real hard that AI lens. And then finally, David, last one. Nexus Mike Kortas just launched Evo lend. So they’re turning servicing into a retention tool. We’re gonna see a lot more of these, by the way- Yeah. We will … people, now that technology and AI has made its way into the serving side. I know Marc Helm would love to talk more about this piece. Yeah … but anyways, what Mike has done on Evolend is it’s a new servicing company, and they’re designed to keep loan officers connected with the borrowers after closing. Their concept is to turn servicing into a borrower retention tool rather than a back office handoff. They’ve already serviced or received approvals to service loans backed by Fannie and Freddie and Ginnie. So very interesting. Check that out. And that again is Evolend. That’s E-V-O L-E-N-D. Good. We’ll do that.
[David] Yeah. I think the, So if Nexus is getting into servicing or doing the servicing, they were advertising how they’re working with bringing LOs into the loan servicing. That would make more sense from a retention standpoint. And now the trigger leads are out, they s- we actually have a chance where they could actually make those phone calls a little faster rather than being aced out because of the trigger lead issue. So could be interesting. One of the things that I Ben just sent me, the producer of the podcast just sent me, and we’re gonna put out a brief segment on it, is bots. You have a text bot on your website, and if it gives out bad information, now this seems like an, oh, duh, you should be watching it, but have you s- what would you say the number of people that are actually spending time doing due diligence of what the bot says, Allen?
[Allen] Oh, it’s, it, it– I’d say it’s right down the middle of the road at the moment. Some of the bots that are there are very controlled. Like some of the support systems or the website companies that you make your websites with, they’ve got help bots. So it’s not like you’re plugging some GPT code directly in there and it can– you can ask it, what year did the dinosaurs roam the earth? But it depends, because you will have some folks that have tried to do something a little bit different because they think that they’re gonna change how everything works and they got their hands on something early. But a lot of the website companies that are out there have very controlled bot experience. But I will tell you, you have to keep in mind that FHFA, Fannie, Freddie there is a number of regulations now where you as the mortgage lender, you have to do your vendor insight and due diligence based on you’re responsible for the AI companies, but it’s got to be what data is sent, where’s the data sent. There’s a lot of permutations that you now have to report on and be liable for. You have to think about what your originators may be doing before they let that connect or touch or be a part of your organization. Yeah. The fact that there was a– it had to do with an airline where someone booked an airline ticket based on a response that the communication bot that, that’s on the website gave, and it was wrong information.
[David] And they said it’s the bot’s fault,” and the airline then refused to. They sued, went to court. Guess what? The court says, “Nope, you’re, you as a company are responsible for the bot.” Sure. Even the technology it’s fairly straightforward on that, but there’s more and more of what are you doing to stay on top of it. One of the questions I had from one of our listeners who called me about this this question was is, is– are you seeing the trend, Alan, where more and more people are contracting out the programming they need done f- within their companies, for example, on their LOS system? Or are they hiring people and keeping it that function within? I’d love to see if you have any thoughts on the intention or the direction of the industry and what’s being done out there.
[Allen] Yeah. I can, I can share. I can’t say whether it’s the majority or not, but I’ve seen a few lenders Start building their own solutions. But they’re not geared to replace any of the vendors. They’re geared to get access to their data and do more with it. Lenders, they’re definitely tired of being nickeled and dimed by too many systems, or they feel that they just pay a little bit of money. They pay a lot of money for a little bit of feature of another system, and they could easily replace that or why do they need that one other tech solution in the middle? So they’re trying to consolidate and refine the tech stack and make things easier. I’ll give you an example. One lender that I recently spoke with they wanted to get all of the NMLS data, and there’s a company that provides some analytics around that data. They didn’t wanna pay the other company. So NMLS said, “You really can’t have it. Here’s what it costs. It’s a lot of money, by the way, but for your use case, you’re gonna have to go through someone else. But you can get access to the data.” And they thought that they would just be better off checking on, especially the onboarding of originators and branches, being able to verify and validate the data in their own workflow. So the automation of bringing data to their own systems, they felt they can remove an entire vendor. And you’re gonna see more of that, and it is going on, David.
[David] Yeah. The number one thing y- everyone’s gotta focus on is how can we reduce costs? We’ve got to get this down. Again, Alice and I had the privilege of working with a company. It was Radius Financial in Boston, I’ll tell you that, years ago. And they kept this thing going, and they have their costs down on government loans below $1,300 for operational costs and below 1,000 for conventional loans. Well- It can be done. And it can be done-
[Allen] David, one of the, one of the interesting things that you’ve heard me say in multiple shows in the past, I have a new AI avatar communication technology, and we’re gonna be doing a big launch, by the way, in Chicago. So for anyone that follows me, feel free to be excited with me. But anyways, th- the interesting thing is what… the interesting thing is that there are- A number of issues in multiple industries, and I’ve found that go- that’s why I mentioned my company. We’re in one other industry as well. Access to data. And this industry in the early 2000s started a format in which we charge people for access to their data. And it, the price kept getting larger and larger, and we’re at a point where it costs so much money to have a vendor because they need to be integrated to the life cycle of your process, which the average loan, David, is what? 13 plus vendors? 13, yeah. Yeah. And because of that, it costs a lot of money, and the vendors have to pay a lot of money. And so the vendors do is they’re turning around and charging you the lender because they can’t sustain any margin by having to pay the exuberant fees that other people are charging them and when I’ve talked to other people in other industries, they don’t. There’s a cost everywhere, but it’s nothing like mortgage. You’re not paying, sometimes mortgage, certain partners are 30% of your invoice that the customer you’re paying as your toll fee, which is just crazy.
[David] Yeah. It’s gonna be very interesting. I can’t wait to see how much is talked about this in the, in, at the annual conference. I’m hearing more and more people saying, “I’ve got to go to the annual conferences here.” It is, and I was just looking it up, October 11th through the 14th of October. And there is just a lot that’s gonna be discussed while they’re, while there.
Allen Pollack
, Chief Operating Officer, Tech Consultant
Allen Pollack, a Mortgage & Financial Services Technology Advisor, is a subject matter expert in the mortgage origination process along with software product management and software development.
In today’s financial services push to all things Digital, Allen has been helping lenders and financial services solution providers align their digital transformation and technology strategies by removing the human element of risk, and automating processes that drive efficiencies and margins into profits.
Over the course of his career, Allen has co-created and developed technology business models that have birthed highly successful, innovative solutions and companies.
Allen co-founded and served as CTO of New York Loan Exchange (NYLX), a loan product eligibility and pricing engine (PPE) that made an immediate impact on the industry, scaling the company quickly and forming partnerships with multiple mortgage and financial lending companies. In 2012, Allen was a co-founder of a merger between NYLX and Aklero Risk Analytics that created LoanLogics, A Mortgage Loan Quality and Performance Analytics company. Allen served as CTO where he continued to bring new and innovative product solutions to the market that made a significant impact to mortgage lenders that reduced risk, scaled business channels, and grew profits in a very competitive and highly regulated market.
Allen is also is mortgage and finance technology contributor on a weekly live industry podcast, Lykken on Lending, and is launching a new podcast soon to be released, TechStack Radio, dedicated to technology and innovation in Financial Services.