A fully digitallyenabled bank
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Gateway First Bank: from lender to banker WRITTEN BY
JOHN O’HANLON PRODUCED BY
ANDY TURNER
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With a goal to grow its accounts and deposits nationwide, Gateway Mortgage Group is preparing in mid-2019 to launch Gateway First Bank, its full-service, direct-toconsumer digital bank
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uying a home is a pivotal decision for anybody. Much more than a routine commercial transaction, it speaks to that
person’s aspirations, hopes, and family identity. It was with this awareness, and a vision to help 04
families and communities grow stronger through home ownership, that Kevin J Stitt, a career professional in the mortgage industry, started up Gateway Mortgage Group in 2000. By 2017, through some of the most challenging times for the housing market, Stitt had grown Gateway to become one of the largest privately held mortgage origination and servicing companies in America, employing more than 1,200 people at 160 branch offices. In November 2018, Kevin Stitt was elected Governor of the State of Oklahoma, but before he stepped aside from the position as CEO at Gateway he had been able to advance a long-held desire to move beyond the origination and servicing of mortgage loans and turn the company into a fully-fledged bank. Leveraging the expertise of Stephen Curry, a banker specializing in banking
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“ Increasingly we turn to technology to reduce the number of touchpoints and enhance the borrower experience” — Steven Harpe, CIO, Gateway First Bank
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“ It used to take days, even weeks to get through an application process… but now on the mortgage side of the business we average less 06 than 30 minutes” — Steven Harpe, CIO, Gateway First Bank
transitions who replaced Stitt as CEO in August 2018, Gateway acquired Farmers Exchange Bank to form Gateway First Bank which, with $1.2bn in assets and five banking centers in Northwest Oklahoma, emerged overnight as one of the largest banks in the State of Oklahoma by asset size, and one of the largest bank mortgage operations in the United States. The enabling technology team Growing the technology infrastructure to support the radical and highly-unusual transformation from a mortgage company into a bank is a process that has been ongoing since the appointment of Steven Harpe as CIO in 2013. Harpe had held senior leadership roles in IT for more than 20 years. Back then, there wasn’t really a technology division in the present-day sense, he recalls: tech was seen as a black box, and the relationship with the rest of the business was an adversarial one. “We had to develop a managed services concept within the business,” Harpe explains. Digital enablement is now recognized as essential to all financial services, though the industry as a whole has been slow to acknowledge that.
CLICK TO WATCH : ‘THE GATEWAY EXPERIENCE’ 07 This is a company built on service,
services too. “Financial services were
and that has been the secret of its
late getting into this space but as we
rapid growth to date. “As we continue
move forward it’s no longer millennial
to take on additional customers we
problems we are trying to solve.
also want to be able to effectively
We are trying to solve problems for
recruit the sales and corporate staff
everybody and the digital platforms
that will serve them. Attracting the best
that we are building and integrating
people means offering them the best
today can do that,” stated Harpe.
products available through a top tier
Over recent years, mobile-friendly
technology platform.” Harpe adds that
technology has penetrated all industries,
it’s a mistake to suppose that millennials
with mortgage lending no exception,
are the only group to embrace digital
Harpe points out. “Increasingly we turn
technology, citing his mother who,
to technology to reduce the number of
at 74, is inseparable from her iPad for
touchpoints and enhance the borrower
communication, shopping and financial
experience by giving them an intuitive w w w.ga te wa yf i rs t . com
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one-touch technology platform.”
backroom mindset and created a very
Fintech has become a commodity,
dynamic, agile and digital forward-
so his strategy has been to outsource
thinking group.”
the principal elements to the partners
The IT organization Harpe leads
who do it best. “I want to spend our
now has around 40 people, all with
time on applications, enhancing digital
a problem-solving mentality. “When we
experience, and making better use of
hire someone, we look well beyond
data to understand how we can best
IT knowledge and competence,” he
deliver our mortgage and other
comments. “We want people who will
financial services,” Harpe added. “We
take ownership of their ideas, and have
see ourselves as servants to everyone
a sense of urgency about them; people
in this company, and I am proud to be
who are excited to be here and keen
able to say we quickly ditched the old
to solve problems for the business.”
FOUR KEY PLATFORMS
on the mortgage side of the business
On the front line of a lender’s relationship
we average less than 30 minutes,”
with its clients is the point of sale (POS)
stated Harpe. “We can automatically
system. In a competitive environment,
pull W2s, tax records and the like,
the speed and efficiency with which a
ingest these files and use the Blend
loan application can be processed
platform to digest the information and
makes all the difference. The POS
quickly get through the 1003 process.”
system Gateway selected was
The difference this makes to the
provided by Blend, a Silicon Valley
customer experience is immense
software developer that now connects
and it helps Gateway deliver its vision
more than 15,000 banks and financial
to realize the American Dream of
institutions to make routine checks. “It
homeownership. As Blend’s founder
used to take days or even weeks to get
Nima Ghamsari has said, a large
through an application process, which
number of people don’t realize they
was stressful for the applicant, but now
qualify for home ownership until they
E XE CU T I VE PRO FI LE
Steven Harpe, CIO Harpe leads customers using a unique combination of business experience coupled with 30 years of technology background in large scale cloud computing operations and engineering management. He has engineered, implemented, and managed some of the world’s largest technology platforms with multifaceted business applications. In addition, he has led initiatives to digitize technologies based on aged architectures, including providing mobile platforms. Harpe is dedicated to enthusiastic and progressive leadership as a means of creating and nurturing a lifelong passion of developing people to achieve their goals. In April 2019 he was appointed to the Oklahoma Board of Corrections. Harpe is a keen drummer in his spare time, having backed a number of rock bands.
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CLICK TO WATCH : ‘GATEWAY MORTGAGE GROUP - LINKSTEP’ 11 go through this process. Not surpris-
selecting a new partner in the summer
ingly, customer satisfaction and net
of 2019. Discussions are in hand with
promoter score (NPS) rates have
two industry-leading contenders.
soared. “Everything we’re doing is
As the launch of Gateway First Bank
geared around the customer experience
approached it was clear it should move
and we remove as much friction from
to the most sophisticated core banking
that process as we can,” Harpe
system available. In January 2019, it
emphasizes. “Blend is going to be
was announced that this partner would
helping us with direct deposit for new
be FIS, a global leader in financial
deposit account creation as well.”
services technology with a focus on
After approval, the loan application
retail and institutional banking. “FIS is
moves into the loan origination process.
a global company, and it supports
The current loan origination software
many of the leading direct-to-consumer
(LOS) provider Byte has served the
banks in the market around the world,”
company well but Gateway will be
says Harpe. “Its service will be hosted w w w.ga te wa yf i rs t . com
G AT E W AY F I R S T B A N K
on its own private cloud, in which it has invested massively, and it has deep experience and scale in digital banking.” The transition from the current Jack Henry banking system will take place in July 2019. Loan servicing is the ongoing relationship between lender and client, and this relationship will be trusted to Sagent LoanServ, another partner with its own private cloud. Moving infrastructure from the data center into the cloud, whether private or public, has been an ongoing goal of the IT team, 12
and has largely been achieved, with Blend hosted on AWS as well as both contenders for the LOS. “By the end of 2020, we are going to be sitting in a very unique place. We are a mortgage company that became a bank – and that is exciting enough in itself – but by then we will have all of our core technology running our operations in our business wholly on the cloud, on some of the largest fintech platforms.” Such partners were selected because they are highly future-oriented organizations that look at themselves primarily as technology companies. This, says Harpe, drives their behavior and decision making.
“ Everything we’re doing is geared around the customer experience and we remove as much friction from that process as we can” — Steven Harpe, CIO, Gateway First Bank
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FIS is proud to have Gateway First Bank as a new strategic partner on the Horizon Core Platform. To learn more about FIS leading solutions and client success stories, visit www.fisglobal.com/now.
“ When you implement new technology, new skill sets are required and new jobs get created” — Steven Harpe, CIO, Gateway First Bank
fact, creating scale. When you implement new technology, new skill sets are required and new jobs get created. We are excited about those opportunities, and even more excited about what this is going to provide for our clients. If you are a mortgage or a banking customer (or hopefully both) you are going to be able to consume Gateway First Bank through a common set of digital experiences from a single platform.
PLAYING THE BALL IN FRONT Most of Gateway’s growth up to this
That is where we are headed.” The future of banking is omnichannel,
year’s bank acquisition and merger has
and as such Gateway will try to achieve
been self-generated, so the new bank
a full set of responsive, personalized
will be focusing on safeguarding its
digital services to its customers. For
reputation as Harpe emphasizes. “Over
example, The Digital One Online
the coming years, we will see mainly
Account Origination solution will allow
organic growth mixed with some
customers to open and manage their
acquisitions. But to use a baseball
accounts via mobile and laptop devices.
analogy, we are very much a ‘play the
“This is a foundational time for us,”
ball in front of you’ company – one
enthuses Harpe. We are creating a
thing at a time. The ball in front of us is
brand new foundation so mobile
the bank transition, the transfer of our
banking, credit cards and personal
core systems to FIS and choosing the
finance will all be extendable through
right loan origination partner.”
the APIs and digital services that we
Digitizing the operations and leveraging 21st-Century technologies such as machine learning and automation
are building. Our customers will find it easy to find us and do business with us.” Gateway First Bank is a nationwide
will definitely not endanger jobs at
operator that was founded in the
Gateway, Harpe predicts. “We are, in
communities of Oklahoma. Its community w w w.ga te wa yf i rs t . com
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“ We are creating a brand new foundation… our customers will find it easy to find us and do business with us” — Steven Harpe, CIO, Gateway First Bank
spirit and commitment are a real differentiator for the company, Harpe insists – home ownership is all about aspiration, the family and a stable society, so the company that Kevin Stitt founded has always looked for ways to reach out. The projects it supports are numerous, but typified by the establishment and continuing support of a Christian school in Nigeria in 2009 as well as the Gateway Youth Ranch in Uganda which enhances the lives of disadvantaged young people in that country. Closer to home, Harpe picks out Pearl’s Hope, a Tulsa-based project and refuge that supports homeless women and their families and helps them get back on their feet. “Oftentimes they find themselves having to run from home without the most basic necessities of life: Gateway provides Pearl’s Hope with some of these essentials.” The compassion he clearly feels chimes in with the company’s ethos of helping hard-working people regardless of their current wealth.
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244 South Gateway Place, Jenks, OK 74037 T 877.406.8109 www.gatewayfirst.com