Mortgage Closing Relies Exclusively on Electronic Loan Documents

Fintech Lending Mortgages Electronic Mortgages Electronic Signatures

On August 9, a Wall Street Journal article reported the first mortgage refinance conducted entirely through a remote electronic online closing using electronic signatures. The loan will soon be electronically sold to Freddie Mac. While electronic mortgages are not new, this was the first closing that did not require a notary public be physically present, according to the article. Using an online notary service, the borrowers answered a series of questions to authenticate their identities, and without the need to “wet sign” any of the documents. Freddie Mac’s Vice President of Single-Family Business Transformation Management, Samuel E. Oliver III, stated that “by having things digitized, a loan would be able to get to the secondary market much more quickly. . . . [M]ortgages could be delivered to an investor in as little as one day—a process that takes a median of 29 days now.”

As previously covered in InfoBytes, Freddie Mac released a bulletin last September outlining conditions, which allow closing documents to be electronically recorded. Freddie Mac also provides several resources concerning eClosings  and eMortgages on their website.