Lending built on innovation DIGITAL REPORT 2021
IN ASSOCIATION WITH:
VYSTAR
Lending Built on Innovation WRITTEN BY: JANET BRICE
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November 2021
PRODUCED BY: MICHAEL BANYARD
COMPANY NAME
VYSTAR
VYSTAR
‘Technology-focused with the heart of a credit union’ - VyStar Credit Union drives loyalty among its members who rely on them for affordable lending
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“ Technology-focused, with the heart of a credit union” JENNIFER LOPEZ KOUCHIS SVP, REAL ESTATE LENDING VYSTAR CREDIT UNION
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echnology-focused with the heart of a credit union” is how Jennifer Lopez Kouchis, SVP, Real Estate Lending at VyStar Credit Union, describes the US-based credit union, which boasts a rich military legacy and a strong commitment to serving members from all backgrounds with innovative products and services. VyStar is embracing the drive for innovative technology to enhance the member experience when it comes to real estate lending and is also helping innovative fintech start-ups for its members. As the largest mortgage lender in Northeast Florida, VyStar has a growing field of membership that is open to a wide range of Florida and Georgia residents, as well as past and present military members and their families all over the world. It is a notfor-profit, financial cooperative owned by its members and governed by a volunteer Board of Directors and has more than more than $US12b in assets. The focus of VyStar is to combine the best benefits of credit unions – personalised service, low fees, great rates and best-in-class products – with a commitment to giving back to the communities it serves. This makes finding affordable, quality financial products and services a realityfor their members. www.vystarcu.org
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VyStar Credit Union: Do Good. Bank Better.
For the past two years, VyStar Credit Union has been investing millions of dollars in cuttingedge fintech organisations, both on its own and more recently as part of a consortium of credit unions which has allowed the organisation to roll out technology that will benefit its members. VyStar's individual tech-based startup fund started at US$10m in September 2019 and has grown to about $50m, said Joel Swanson, VyStar’s Chief Member Experience Officer. The credit union is part of the Curql Collective, a coalition of almost 50 credit unions across the country that raised more than US$70 million from its first round of funds and is on course to raise more than US$200 million. VyStar believes the cornerstone of success for financial services organisations is rooted in their ability to remain innovative. That ensures the organisation maintains a competitive edge, remains attractive for members and prospective members and keeps ahead of the pace with market expectations. VyStar 6
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sees investments in fintech companies as opportunities to move the organisation forward in support of its members. How VyStar Credit Union is built on a military heritage VyStar was founded in 1952 as Jax Navy Federal Credit Union at Naval Air Station Jacksonville. The goal was to serve the financial needs of military service members, civil service employees, and their families. Since then they have adapted to changes in the banking industry, from adopting their first computerised accounting system in 1966 to opening their first ATM in 1982. In 2002, they changed the name to VyStar Credit Union and expanded their field of membership to non-military members. Today, the credit union has grown to become one of the largest credit unions in the US, serving more than 780,000 members. VyStar is a member-owned and member-managed financial cooperative.
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Jennifer Lopez Kouchis TITLE: SVP, REAL ESTATE LENDING INDUSTRY: BANKING
EXECUTIVE BIO
LOCATION: JACKSONVILLE Jennifer Lopez Kouchis currently serves as the Senior Vice President of Real Estate Lending at VyStar Credit Union in Jacksonville, Florida. She has over 19 years of service across all facets of the mortgage industry, including more than 14 years of leadership experience. She believes in servant leadership and is dedicated to the credit union movement with a focus on creating innovative solutions. Working conscientiously to expand consumers access to affordable mortgage loans, with the goal of helping communities realize the dream of homeownership. Jennifer currently serves on TransUnion’s Mortgage Advisory board to better serve the home lending industry and the board of Rethreaded, whose mission is to renew hope, reignite dreams and release potential for survivors of human trafficking. Jennifer is the Executive Sponsor of Women at VyStar Empowered, championing an environment in which women are valued, promoted, and able to achieve their full potential. As a leader within the business community, Jennifer was selected by Jacksonville Business Journal as a 40 Under 40 honoree. She received her Certified Mortgage Banker CMB® Designation in 2021.
Black Knight (NYSE:BKI) is a leading provider of integrated software, data and analytics solutions that facilitate and automate many of the business processes across the homeownership life cycle. Black Knight is committed to being a premier business partner that clients rely on to achieve their strategic goals, realize greater success and better serve their customers through its delivery of best-in-class software, services and insights with a relentless commitment to excellence, innovation, integrity and leadership.
Transforming the Mortgage Industry Black Knight is helping Vystar Credit Union enhance its operations with integrated digital capabilities to deliver a premier member experience. Black Knight is a leading provider of technology, data and analytics to the mortgage and real estate industries. Vystar Credit Union will use Black Knight’s integrated digital capabilities to enhance its operations and improve the member experience. “We’re pleased that Vystar will be leveraging our technology systems and digital solutions to optimize its processes and enhance member satisfaction, which will enable the company to compete more effectively,” said Shelley Leonard, chief product and digital officer for Black Knight. Black Knight’s solutions include the Empower® loan origination system and the MSP® servicing system. Both technologies support first mortgages and home equity products on a single platform. “Black Knight supports the entire mortgage ecosystem - from the time a borrower finds a home, through their years of homeownership,”
said Leonard. “Additionally, our technology is helping VyStar Credit Union’s back-office team operate more efficiently by automating processes so they can originate more loans.” By using Black Knight’s end-to-end capabilities from originations through servicing, VyStar Credit Union, as well as its members, will benefit from a seamless, automated mortgage loan experience. Additionally, Black Knight’s Loss MitigationSM solution will deliver the decisioning capabilities that Vystar Credit Union will use to provide greater visibility into which loan eligibility requirements work best for its members. Better Experience for Members Black Knight’s integrated digital capabilities are also enhancing interactions between VyStar Credit Union’s loan officers and members. “Our solutions enable both members and loan officers to complete the loan application steps remotely, which helps reduce loan processing time and costs,” said Leonard. To complement servicing, VyStar Credit Union will offer Servicing DigitalSM to its members, which is a consumer-facing solution that delivers personalized loan information on a mobile device. “Our goal is to create a seamless, end-to-end digital experience for Vystar Credit Union members,” said Leonard.
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MILITARY HEROES MORTGAGE PROGRAM
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We’re here f Military Heroes M
“We feel it is important to reflect the communities we serve. That means having a staff that understands them and offering products and services that work for them and as our membership evolves it is important that we evolve with them and their expectations,” said Kouchis speaking from their headquarters in Jacksonville, Florida. Digital transformation Digital transformation has helped VyStar focus on speed, personalisation, and convenience for its members. “Digital transformation allows us to streamline processes and gain efficiencies by obtaining documentation and more data immediately 10
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up-front, bringing convenience and simplification to the process by leveraging technology throughout the mortgage journey,” said Kouchis. “In turn we were able to gain speed, render quicker decisions and close mortgage loans faster to keep up with demand and market expectations. Members are receiving underwritten approvals much faster, eliminating frustration with unnecessary fallout and delays late in the process. “Creating efficiency ultimately allows us more time to focus on what we do best, which is taking care of our members. I also believe it broadens our audience, our members and future members range across every generation.”
VYSTAR
Heroes an Count On Us.
for you with our Mortgage Program.
“ Our legacy is rooted within our military and civil service families, and we continue to create innovative products and services in support of them” JENNIFER LOPEZ KOUCHIS SVP, REAL ESTATE LENDING VYSTAR CREDIT UNION
Member First workflow Kouchis outlined how VyStar created a customised journey within their Loan Origination System (LOS) and how they moved to an up-front underwriting process. “Our Member First workflow has transformed our mortgage process at VyStar, by creating a better experience not only for our members, but our employees too. We have been able to eliminate unnecessary touchpoints by our team and have created a linear process which in-turn creates speed. “With the new workflow we have created milestones within our LOS technology, with easy-to-use checklists embedded into the system as well as automation where feasible to ensure files are submitted with the necessary information and documentation to render a timely decision. Another piece to making this workflow successful is the specified timing gates which requires a OneTeam focus in supporting our members through their journey. “As a result, our team's quality has increased by over 30%, pull-through percentages have increased by almost 10% and our turn-times have declined which has resulted in positive responses across our membership as well as the Realtor community. ur members receive” instead of “our members are receiving. This supports our focus” instead of “This continues to support our focus of finding innovative ways to serve our members.” Commenting on what gives VyStar Credit Union its competitive edge, Kouchis said: “First and foremost, our people. We have some amazing talent across the organisation who are committed to providing a first-class experience to our membership. Next, we are committed to creating one-of-a-kind products and services, finding innovative solutions that www.vystarcu.org
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deliver value to ensure we provide our members and future members with an unbelievable experience. Agility to help members during the pandemic When the pandemic hit in March 2020, VyStar was agile and pivoted at a moment’s notice to offer more than US$121m in mortgage forbearance to their members. “The COVID-19 pandemic created a boom for new home purchase loans (those finding they need more space or a place of their own) and home refinancing as the media touted the lowest rates ever. With this, we had to pivot and look internally on ways to support this supply and demand, especially with the 12
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competition or new- digital lenders, all while maintaining an exemplary member experience. “Our team achieved incredible success and supported our members when they needed us most during the pandemic. That included offering US$121mn in mortgage forbearance to our members so they could focus on what is really important, which is supporting their families,” commented Kouchis. “Specific to technology, it was the need to implement more innovative solutions and process improvement within our Real Estate Lending team. Looking for technologies that can exchange the loan information, seamlessly and securely, while creating a better experience.
POWER OF PARTNERSHIP WITH BLACK KNIGHT
VYSTAR
Jennifer Lopez Kouchis, SVP, Real Estate Lending at VyStar Credit Union explains the importance of their partnership with Black Knight, a provider of integrated software, data and analytics to the mortgage industry and why she believes this will be transformational. “We are excited to be partnering with Black Knight, an industry leader who is local to Jacksonville, Florida. It's great to have such a dynamic partner who understands what it means to be rooted in the community,” commented Kouchis. Why was Black Knight selected as the Mortgage System Platform and LOS solution by VyStar? “Black Knight has the mortgage industry’s only end-to-end, fully integrated, enterprise solution that is designed to digitise the entire mortgage life cycle. Adding Empower to MSP provides for straight through processing. Automating the process accelerates the loan cycle, boosts productivity, creates scales of economy and prepares for shifts in demand to better serve our members. The enhanced servicing with Empower from retention, cross sell, assumptions - makes our servicing platform a growth engine.” Technology is now about the ecosystem, please could you explain more about how the Black Knight Financial Services partnership will help VyStar? “At the heart, a mortgage lending ecosystem is technology. This allows us to evolve, streamline the process and respond to the ever-changing environment, while
improving service levels. A few items that drew us to Black Knight include the UnderOne-Roof integrations which allows us to reduce cost and respond to change, as well as the True Self-Service experience. We feel the Black Knight technology will be transformational and members can expect an enhanced single experience that can be accessed wherever they are and whenever they want, with a focus on exceeding member expectations.” How will Black Knight support VyStar’s expansion efforts within Real Estate Lending? “They are a full-service origination and servicing solution which will allow VyStar to expand and support “local to global growth efforts”. We feel by leveraging both the MSP and LOS will allow us the opportunity to expand quickly to support our growing membership.” How will the VyStar and Black Knight partnership impact the member experience? “We will be able to serve our membership in an innovative and new way by anticipating when it may be in our members best interest. For example taking advantage of lower rates or equity in their home. We want to change the landscape and be there for our members through every stage of life by providing our members valuable and insightful information up-front. This is when we can truly provide Best in Class service and support, leveraging the info we have and by removing roadblocks and redundant requests, all while accelerating the loan process.”
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“The power of resilience and the ability to change course at a moment’s notice was vital during the pandemic. This year has been incredibly challenging, but also a year to be truly grateful for. It was all about people helping people.” VyStar acted to support changes in demand triggered from COVID-19 by increasing their teams who put in the additional hours to serve their members. Staff worked extra hours to submit applications as part of the Paycheck Protection Program, adjusted branch operations to accommodate members. “We really had to look internally for ways to streamline our process and create efficiencies (quick hits first) with system enhancements, automation and then worked our way to major process improvement with the most notable change for us being within our workflow, which we refer to as Member First. We also sought out technology that could add value within our journey such as E-Close through our Hybrid and Full Remote Online notarisation (RON).” Military Heroes Program VyStar is honoring its military roots with the launch of their Military Heroes Program which will include several features such as a grant program offering up to $10k, 100% financing with no PMI, and access to a VyHero Mortgage Support Team, to name a few. “Our legacy is rooted within our military and civil service families, and we continue to create innovative products and services in support of them. Specifically, within Real Estate Lending, we are launching a Military Heroes Program, which we are extremely excited about. We took a unique approach to building this product by surveying our military families and those with affiliations to find out what they wanted to see and would benefit from most through this program,” said Kouchis. 14
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“Most of our team are military certified specialists which means that we take it seriously. We want to understand the challenges their families go through and help them in innovative ways to access the mortgage financing they need.” “In addition, the Heroes helping Heroes initiative will involve a charitable component that supports VyStar’s commitment to being a strong community leader in addition to a trusted financial institution. “It has been a great and humbling experience to build this in tandem with our heroes for our heroes,” commented Kouchis.
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“Our team achieved incredible success and supported our members when they needed us most during the pandemic. That included offering US$121m in mortgage forbearance to our members so they could focus on what is really important, which is supporting their families” JENNIFER LOPEZ KOUCHIS SVP, REAL ESTATE LENDING VYSTAR CREDIT UNION
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“Members are receiving underwritten approvals much faster, eliminating frustration with unnecessary fallout and delays late in the process” JENNIFER LOPEZ KOUCHIS SVP, REAL ESTATE LENDING VYSTAR CREDIT UNION
Future strategy for VyStar Credit Union Kouchis highlighted what we can expect from VyStar Credit Union going forward in terms of technology and strategy. “I believe you will continue to see some exciting innovation from VyStar as we are technology-focused with the heart of a credit union. We understand the value that technology brings when it comes to member experience as well as growth and serving our members and future members.” Focusing on how homeownership is going to evolve over the next few years following the fallout of the pandemic, Kouchis said: “Inventory is a hot topic today, so we may see more innovation around the building process. “Personally, I am hoping that as some markets experience rising home values, programs will continue to flourish in support of affordable home ownership. I think this is critical to our communities. You will continue to hear exciting news from VyStar as it relates to leveraging technology and fintech partnerships. VyStar has the resources and capabilities of the banks, the innovative spirit of modern fintech's and the heart of a credit union.”
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VyStar Credit Union P.O. Box 45085 Jacksonville, FL 32232 www.vystarcu.org
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