Equitable Group Inc. is a niche mortgage lender whose core business is first charge mortgage financing that is offered through its wholly owned subsidiary, The Equitable Trust Company (“Equitable Trust”). Founded in 1970, Equitable Trust is a federally incorporated financial institution offering insured deposits. Equitable Trust serves single family, small and large commercial borrowers, and their mortgage advisors. It also serves the investing public as a provider of Guaranteed Investment Certificates (GICs), being licensed to issue GICs in every province and territory across Canada.
Equitable Trust benefits:
- A significant improvement in workflow efficiency for mortgage processing
- A cohesive approach for handling all workflow and document archival needs going forward
- Elimination of filing cabinets, storage facilities, etc.
- Enhanced privacy and security
- A consistent approach to business continuity
As is the case with most financial institutions, Equitable Trust was spending considerable resources servicing the needs of their clients in a prompt manner, while keeping all of the information safe, secure and organized. It became clear they needed to find a better way to automate workflows, enhance security and reduce overall storage costs to support the growth of its lines of business.
Prior to implementing FileNexus, Equitable Trust had a paper based mortgage approval process. All documents produced while servicing customers—mortgage and credit applications, approval documents, customer information, etc.—would reside in paper files. These documents are generated from a variety of sources—email, web, mail, fax and various other printed material. Regardless of how the information arrived—digitized or not—all documents were printed and then stored on paper in filing cabinets by loan number. Files were housed at various locations, including at third party vendors’ secured sites. The process to locate, access and circulate information in approval cycles was very time consuming and the cost of storage needed to be reduced.
“For Mortgage Services, FileNexus has improved processes within our department by alleviating the need to request and search for physical files. It has streamlined and created more efficiency in our workflow process.”
Aviva Braude, Director of Mortgage Services
The Equitable Trust Company
A Customized FileNexus Deployment to Meet the Needs of Equitable Trust
Loris Technologies Inc. worked closely with Equitable Trust to review their existing workflow processes and determine a more efficient way to manage records using their FileNexus Document Management System. FileNexus was then rapidly modified to address their specific needs.
For Single Family Residential mortgages, all new incoming and outgoing documents are now standardized as electronic files. FileNexus automatically indexes, archives and logically organizes documents in their native file format. No more paper files. With advanced logging features, Equitable Trust will be able to use FileNexus to track the metrics of how long documents take to cycle. And they know at a glance where the document is and at what stage it is in the process.
Paper inherently runs the risk of being lost, stolen or damaged. And while a paper file is awaiting action on someone’s desk it is inaccessible to other departments. FileNexus employs automated approvals and routing of documents to streamline Equitable Trust’s approval processes. Users with appropriate security access are notified of pending tasks—which documents need their attention and what actions need to be taken allowing them to better service customers and expedite funding decisions.
“FileNexus has this great option for multiple access by many inter-dependent users of the system. Without the wait period, our division is able to review and move the file from one folder to another allowing us to move more quickly to the funding process.”
Sayed Karrar Taqi, Manager, Quality Assurance
The Equitable Trust Company
FileNexus offers enhanced privacy and security—all files are encrypted. With all documents electronically backed up off site, Equitable Trust was able to ensure their business continuity and develop a strong disaster recovery strategy.
Ongoing and Future Projects
FileNexus is currently deployed in both the Single Family Residential mortgages and Deposit Services (GIC) lines of business. Equitable Trust has engaged an outside vendor to help them scan all their old Single Family Residential paper files into FileNexus in the coming year. In 2013 Equitable Trust plans to roll out FileNexus to other lines of business.
“In addition to file sharing, FileNexus enables us to electronically store confidential information within our systems rather than in paper files. The electronic filing system also supports our Company’s social responsibility platform on the environment by reducing the amount of paper consumed on a daily basis.”
Peter Guzzo, Senior Manager, Residential Underwriting
The Equitable Trust Company
About FileNexus
The FileNexus Document Management System gives organizations, both large and small, the ability to capture virtually any type of document from any source (i.e. paper records such as maps, drawings, manuals, electronic files such as host generated reports, client statement streams, IVR recordings, etc.), index and compress them for secure archival and future recall—providing a single cohesive repository for all document management, workflow, archival and business continuity needs. To learn more about FileNexus and Loris Technologies Inc., please visit www.filenexus.com and request a FileNexus demo.
For more information on how FileNexus can improve your business efficiency, please contact Kathryn Peet, Director of Communications, at kpeet@loristech.com or call 416-252-4701 x242.
