00:09We are live from the New York Stock Exchange. I'm Diego Sanchez, President of HousingWire,
00:16and I'm joined today by Bob Hart, President of ICE Mortgage Technology. Bob, it's so great to be
00:21with you in this amazing shrine to capitalism. Yeah, it's pretty impressive. 234 years, I think,
00:28today? I've been here several times, and I was just telling you before this, that it never gets old.
00:34It's really amazing to be sitting here interviewing you. Thank you. Appreciate you coming. So I'd love
00:39to talk about ICE Mortgage Technology a little bit, but before we go there, we're here at the
00:46New York Stock Exchange. ICE is much more than just ICE Mortgage Technology. How do you think that
00:51benefits your mortgage clients for ICE Mortgage Technology to be part of this broader company?
00:57Sure. Well, let's start with ICE itself. It started with the Continental Power Exchange,
01:03and in looking at the energy markets, there was a desire to improve efficiency and transparency,
01:10and that took an investment in technology. Over time, ICE has acquired and invested in every
01:16business unit that they've done that with, and so you look at the New York Stock Exchange. It wasn't
01:20that long ago that it was a paper-based organization, and through time, they've again invested here for
01:26transparency and efficiency, and I think the intent is to continue to bring that into mortgage.
01:30You think about mortgage, mortgage is largely paper-based, and it's really understanding the
01:34risk, right? The risk of the borrower, the risk of the property, and so I think with that experience,
01:39they can share some of the underpinnings that they've learned from the other business units.
01:42So we've been hearing a lot about cybersecurity recently, especially with some of the new AI models
01:49that are coming to market. How do you manage cybersecurity within ICE mortgage technology
01:55and help protect those clients?
01:57Yeah, that's a great question. I think if you think about ICE as a whole, again, New York Stock Exchange
02:01behind us, we are considered critical infrastructure, and so as a backdrop to that, cybersecurity becomes
02:09foundational, if you will, and so when you think about something like Mythos, which is what I think
02:13you're referencing, we have to understand not only how to protect our customers today, but how to protect
02:18them tomorrow. And so with something like Mythos, two things that I think come to mind for me,
02:22we work with the Department of Treasury, and we work with the Office of the Director of Cyber
02:29for the U.S. Government. Both of them are allowing us to get early insights into what people are doing
02:35today, as well as what nation states are doing, and it allows us to really think through what we need
02:40to do as an organization. With our cybersecurity team, they've already been thinking through how AI
02:45could be used in terms of finding areas of weakness, as well as being able to exploit it,
02:50and so we've already been using cutting-edge AI tools to help for detection, and we've partnered
02:54with a number of companies to that end. Let's stick with AI for a moment. Sure. We just had ICE
02:59experience a couple months ago, really fascinating conference, really interesting conference,
03:05where you talked a lot about AI. Tell us a little bit more about some of those projects that you've
03:09been
03:09working on. So we've already announced what we've been doing with data and document recognition
03:14and our analyzer products in terms of credit, asset, and income. I think we also announced the beta of
03:21voice and chat, and I think really the way we should think about AI is where are you trying to
03:26create
03:27efficiencies, but also what's the backdrop of compliance with that? How do you make sure that
03:31someone is able to be efficient, but you didn't lose the sanctity of that compliance? And so that's
03:37really where we've been focused and invested, really thinking through, okay, what are the tasks
03:41that don't necessarily need a human in the loop, but what are the ones that are critical to that?
03:45And so I think you're going to see us continue to evolve and continue to invest and continue to
03:49announce new products that we're bringing to the table. There's a lot of what I'll call AI chatter
03:54out there right now about how fast can you move something through the process, but I think a lot of
03:59times
03:59what happens is people completely lose sight of the fact that at the end of the day, there is an
04:03asset
04:03here that investors are acquiring, and there's also state and federal regulatory guidelines that you
04:09have to follow, so just letting a machine do that, it starts to get really risky, and so we are
04:13taking
04:13all of that into account, so we've got our, you know, what I would call our mortgage rails for both
04:17origination and servicing, and we're really thinking through what are the right approaches with
04:22governance to actually enable more efficiency using AI, but also where do you need to pull a human in to
04:27make that decision, because someone has to be accountable in the end.
04:31Let's talk a little bit more about those mortgage rails for origination and servicing, because
04:35you, your viewpoint is you're overlooking the entire ecosystem of mortgage, and so you have a
04:42platform in Encompass that deals with origination, and you have a platform that you acquired through
04:48your Black Knight acquisition that deals with services. How are you thinking about pulling those
04:52things together and making it really a through line between origination and servicing?
04:57Yeah, so I think let's start, let's start with the borrower persona, the ability for someone to apply,
05:03to be able to underwrite them as quickly as possible, understand the underlying risk,
05:06their assets, their credit, their income, being able to process them again as efficiently as possible
05:11to closing, and then being able to seamlessly board them into the servicing platform, and then as they're
05:16on the servicing platform, really understanding where that borrower is in their life, but also where that
05:22loan is in its cycle, and being able to surface opportunities to our customers to improve,
05:27potentially, the outcome for that borrower, if they need a HELOC, if they can refi because rates
05:31have dropped, and building an end-to-end so that that borrower can then be pre-populated back into
05:36Encompass, and you can really show what I would call a holistic customer relationship end-to-end.
05:41It's the life cycle of a mortgage customer.
05:42You got it, the flywheel, if you will, as well.
05:44Yeah, yeah, yeah.
05:45Really amazing.
05:46So as you think about the rest of 26 and into 27, you're a relatively new leader for ICE
05:52Mortgage Technology.
05:54What's your strategy for growth over the next year or so?
05:57I think it's a couple facets to that.
06:00One is we have been releasing new products that are part of the origination and fulfillment
06:05life cycle.
06:07We recently announced our fraud product.
06:09We had a flood product.
06:11I think you're going to see us release a couple more products or upgrades to products over
06:14the course of the next year.
06:16And then it's where can we create efficiencies with our customer base?
06:20You talked about AI.
06:20I think you'll see a lot more AI investment over the next year and a lot more announcements
06:24over the next year.
06:25And we believe if we can create more efficiencies there for our customers, that they're willing
06:30to pay for that in terms of reduction in efficiency of their process.
06:33Amazing.
06:34Bob, so great to catch up with you today.
06:35See you again.
06:36Yeah.
06:36Yeah.
06:45See you again.
06:46Yeah.
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