00:00From HousingWire HQ in Dallas, Texas, I'm Alison LaForgia, Managing Editor of HousingWire's
00:08Content Studio. And today I'm joined by Rhiannon Bolan, the Senior Vice President and National
00:13Sales Director at GridBase. Rhiannon, thank you so much for joining me today.
00:18Thanks, Alison. Excited to be here. Appreciate it.
00:21Let's get started with talking a little bit about your role at GridBase and what drives
00:25your passion for transforming title and lending workflows. Yeah, no, I appreciate the question.
00:31So I'm SVP of sales for GridBase. I've been in the industry for about 25 years. I'm a CMB. I've
00:40been very involved in the industry via, you know, just work with I've done with the Mortgage Bankers
00:44Association. I think I've been on the TMBA board, Texas Mortgage Bankers Association since the day
00:49the earth cold, I feel like sometimes. But I've always been very driven by helping my clients solve
00:57problems. And I'm genuinely interested in making workflows and interaction more collaborative and
01:05efficient. I don't know that I even realized truly how manual the process was still between lender and
01:13title. So for me, it's really exciting what GridBase is trying to do. I think we're trying to solve
01:19for a problem here in the industry. And so for me, that's kind of what drives my my passion and why
01:26I came here. Plus, we just have very nice people that we work with. And it's really rewarding to be
01:33in a great culture that's really trying to help an industry challenge. So let's dig into that
01:41industry challenge a little bit more. GridBase has been described as a unique middleware solution
01:47connecting two segments of that transaction process that you just mentioned. What makes it a truly
01:52unique piece of technology? So I think for us, we're really the only solution of its kind that's
02:02truly agnostic to the operating system, the product, or the channel. And it connects both sides of the
02:12equation, both lender and title. Our company was founded in title. So that's, you know, kind of
02:18our background. And so from that aspect, we understand that side. And we know that in order
02:24to maximize the adoption between the two parties, we have to accommodate both sides. So we set out to
02:33build this technology that accommodates both workflows and in both systems. So we're kind of like an
02:39invisible connector between the two. But we built it in such a way that we can accommodate the
02:45specifications of each workflow. That sounds very exciting. It sounds like you're catering to two
02:51very separate needs industry wise, which is very unique. But whenever there's new technology,
02:58there's always some hesitancy around adopting that technology. What are some of the most significant
03:04significant or even standout gains that you've seen clients experience after implementation?
03:10So it's going to kind of sound very simplistic, but the first and I think most, you know, major
03:16area that the grid-based technology accommodates for is just completely getting out of email
03:22altogether. I was very surprised after coming here that this part of the manufacturing process of,
03:30you know, of originating and closing loans is still largely handled in email. So that's like sending
03:38documents, manual re-keying, all of these parts that are done outside of a system of record. So even
03:45that little change to the workflow where we enable both parties, title and lender, to collaborate and
03:53communicate inside of their respective systems of record, even that alone is such a huge lift.
03:59It really is. And what you just mentioned highlights something to me or what comes top of mind is
04:04security. Right. And that is, I know, a critical concern in the financial technology sector. So
04:11could you tell us a little bit more about how grid-based helps mitigate risks like fraud?
04:17Yeah. I mean, even just what I mentioned, even as simple as just getting completely out of email,
04:22I mean, conducting business in that way is inherently not secure. When you're sending
04:29information back and forth outside of, you know, a secure system that's, you know, that's residing
04:37inside of the portal of how you conduct your workflows, you're automatically going to increase
04:42the likelihood or the risk of fraud. So for us, that's a really critical concern,
04:48not only just the workflow aspect of it and making that more efficient, but then also,
04:54you know, eliminating that higher risk of fraud, you know, or a breach with, to your point,
05:02so many concerns that we have in our industry today.
05:06That sounds fantastic. I think everybody's looking for those opportunities in their tech stack to
05:12be more aware of security issues and mitigating any of those risks, right?
05:20Now, I want to go back a little bit. You mentioned being product system and even channel agnostic.
05:26Can you elaborate on how grid-based's flexibility distinguishes it from other solutions?
05:32Yeah. And for us, this is kind of where the rubber meets the road, right? Because we are a middleware,
05:37effectively. And because there are so many parts of the loan manufacturing process, and that can be
05:44from, you know, a search on the MLS, to the point of sale, to the LOS, and even on a servicing platform
05:51that interact in some way with title. Gridbase is really unique because we can connect to any number
05:58of various systems of record that subsequently connect the lender to the title provider, but we also connect
06:05to the major title production systems or the TPS. You know, lenders work on an LOS and title agents
06:11work on a TPS. So we connect to the other side of that. There are other solutions that only provide
06:17the title order, we'll say. So you can place the order, and that can happen from within the system,
06:24but the rest of the parts and the pieces around the workflow, like the documents and the data,
06:29the alerts, the statuses, the messages, those all then get moved to email, like we discussed.
06:34So what we do is we keep all of the parts of that inside of any platform used by the lender
06:40and the title provider on their system, and we connect those two. So they can, you know,
06:45you can kind of collaborate between the two systems without ever exiting it. That's what makes us unique.
06:51I mean, it sounds like getting out of email would be something that would be a pretty top of mind for
06:57most people who are looking to bring things into 2025, 2026. Speaking of that, technology continues to
07:10evolve. What vision does Gridbase have for supporting and continuing to support digital transformation in
07:18the title and lending industries? You know, I feel like we have very consistent conversations
07:26internally and considerations around our roadmap and where our technology can go. You know, we're
07:33already solving for the problem of keeping the workflows in a secure environment. But we've got
07:38areas of consideration around enabling lenders to validate whether the title is clear from the time
07:45of the intent to proceed that could reside in a point of sale. We see a future around digitizing,
07:52you know, balancing CDs that could effectively become a reality. And we also see a potential for
07:58fully streamlining the entirety, the end-to-end title workflow from fee estimates to the title order
08:07to docs to e-signing. So we've got a lot, I think, of opportunity and things that we're discussing that
08:15are potentially going to end up on our roadmap that I see just to make this whole workflow more
08:20efficient and, you know, kind of digitize that whole process. It sounds like there's a lot on the
08:28roadmap and that Gridbase has a pretty ambitious plan for continuing to support both title and lending.
08:35I have to ask you, what are you most excited about for the future?
08:39Yeah, I mean, I think I alluded to it, you know, when we first started talking about just
08:43me personally and my passion for, you know, helping to solve, you know, challenges or problems for my
08:48clients. And I think that is kind of the core of our company is kind of the culture of our company
08:53and the opportunity to help really truly solve an industry challenge that's very exciting for us.
08:59This workflow is well overdue for modernization and it's in desperate need of becoming more secure,
09:07especially with, you know, we talked about it a little bit with cybersecurity concerns that permeate
09:11our industry now. You know, it's certainly, I would say, a bit of a paradigm shift for this part of the
09:17process because it's a little new what we're trying to introduce. But I think at Gridbase, we truly have
09:23a passion for making this whole experience better for all the parties involved. So I think that's
09:28probably what is most exciting for us.
09:31Well, I'm excited to see what comes next for Gridbase. Brandon, thank you so much for taking
09:37me through how Gridbase is transforming the title and lending industry.
09:41Thank you. I appreciate it.
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