Start Small, Scale Fast: The IMB Approach to Mortgage Intelligent Automation

As an independent mortgage bank (IMB), you operate differently than larger institutions. What you have is focus, agility, and the ability to move fast when you identify the right opportunity—no enterprise committees, no cross-departmental coordination delays, no lengthy approval chains.

That's your advantage—and intelligent automation (IA) is where that advantage matters most right now.

Your narrower operational scope isn't a limitation. It's a strategic opportunity that enables faster, more focused implementation. While larger institutions navigate cross-departmental coordination and enterprise-wide rollouts, you can target specific friction points and deploy solutions in weeks rather than quarters.

The question is whether you'll capitalize on this agility or let implementation concerns slow you down.

Why Starting with Pilot Programs Works for IMBs

Cost concerns don't have to stall progress. Recent research notes that the key is starting with pilot programs in high-volume, low-risk areas that demonstrate ROI quickly and build internal support for broader investment.

Your loan volume means you can prove value fast. If you process 200 loans monthly, deploying IA for document validation affects 200 transactions immediately. Within 30 days, you have concrete data: processing time reduced by X hours, member callbacks decreased by Y%, loan officer capacity increased by Z loans monthly.

This rapid feedback loop is your operational advantage. You can measure results and iterate based on real performance data without navigating complex approval hierarchies.

Target these high-impact, low-risk areas first:

• Document validation and verification. This is the highest-volume, most predictable task in your operation. Borrowers submit the same document types repeatedly. The validation rules are clear. The opportunity for immediate time savings is obvious. IA-enabled document processing can reduce review time from hours to minutes while catching errors instantly—before they create delays downstream.

• Income verification. Your processors spend hours calling employers and cross-referencing pay stubs against bank statements. IA automates income data extraction, verifies employment through integrated databases, and flags discrepancies for human review.

• Conditions management. Tracking outstanding items across email, your LOS, and spreadsheets creates chaos that extends closing timelines. IA centralizes condition tracking, automatically notifies borrowers of missing items, and gives your team single-dashboard visibility. Members get faster responses. Your team stops playing email tag. Closings accelerate.

Start with one. Prove ROI. Build from there. This phased approach demonstrates value to your team while managing implementation costs effectively.

The Partnership Advantage: Why IMBs Should Partner, Not Build

Four in ten lenders already work with fintech partners versus only a quarter building in-house. For IMBs without large IT teams, partnerships provide specialized expertise, faster deployment, and access to prebuilt integrations with common LOS, POS, and CRM platforms.

But here's what many IMBs are missing about the partnership decision: it's not just about outsourcing technology development. It's about accelerating capability development while maintaining focus on your core competency—originating mortgages.

Building IA capabilities in-house requires data scientists, AI engineers, integration specialists, and ongoing maintenance resources. Even if you could afford these investments, they'd divert focus from what actually drives your business: processing loans efficiently and serving borrowers effectively.

Partnering gets you three critical advantages:

• Faster time-to-value. Fintech partners have prebuilt integrations with the LOS, POS, and CRM platforms you're already using. What would take your team months to develop and test is available immediately. Speed matters when you're operating on tight margins. Every month of delayed implementation is revenue and efficiency left on the table.

• Specialized expertise you can't justify hiring. Your fintech partner already has AI specialists, compliance experts, and integration engineers who work across hundreds of mortgage implementations. They've seen every edge case, every integration challenge, every regulatory consideration. You get access to enterprise-level expertise without enterprise-level headcount costs.

• Continuous optimization without internal lift. When regulations change or technology evolves, your partner handles updates and improvements. You benefit from ongoing enhancements without dedicating internal resources to maintenance and evolution.

The research shows 96% of lenders need additional skills to support IA adoption. For IMBs, acknowledging this capability gap isn't weakness—it's strategic clarity that leads to smarter partnership decisions.

The Regulatory Reality: Why IA Reduces Risk Exposure

With regulatory oversight shifting from federal to state level, the impact of every error is multiplied across different regulatory jurisdictions. What used to be a single compliance framework is now 50 different state requirements, each with unique interpretations and enforcement approaches. This regulatory complexity makes IA essential for risk management, not just operational efficiency.

IA reduces risk exposure through consistent, well-documented processes that create automatic audit trails. When a state regulator asks to see your income verification methodology for a loan originated 18 months ago, IA provides complete documentation showing exactly what data was analyzed, what verification steps were completed, and what decision logic was applied—all timestamped and traceable.

Manual processes can't match this documentation rigor. Your loan processor might remember they called the employer, but did they document that call? Did they note what was verified? Is that documentation in the file or lost in email?

IA eliminates these documentation gaps while simultaneously cutting the compliance workload that has grown 40% in IT budget allocation. Your compliance costs decrease while your risk exposure drops—that's ROI beyond just operational efficiency.

The Borrower Experience You're Building

The advantage isn't about having the biggest technology budget. It's about delivering superior borrower experiences through faster processing, 24/7 engagement, and seamless digital interactions that convert shoppers into closed loans.

When you process applications faster while providing instant answers to borrower questions at any hour, you're building market share through service quality. When your borrowers get immediate feedback on uploaded documents instead of waiting days for manual review, they tell friends and realtors about the experience. When your closings consistently happen on schedule because IA caught potential delays early, you earn referral business through execution excellence.

Understanding what makes automation truly intelligent helps explain how these operational advantages translate directly to measurably better borrower experiences and stronger business outcomes.

Your leaner team structure amplifies these benefits. Every efficiency gain affects your operation immediately. Every hour reclaimed through automation translates directly to capacity for additional loan volume. Every improvement in borrower satisfaction shows up quickly in referral rates and conversion metrics.

Turning Strategy Into Results

The gap between intention and execution is where most IA initiatives fail. The research shows 81% of lenders expect to increase IA spending, yet many struggle to move beyond pilot programs to meaningful implementation.

For IMBs, success requires three specific commitments:

• Start with operational pain, not technology enthusiasm. Don't deploy IA because it's trendy. Deploy it where your team is drowning in manual work and borrowers are frustrated by delays. Let real operational challenges guide your roadmap.

• Measure rigorously from day one. Before deploying IA, establish baseline metrics: processing time per loan stage, error rates, borrower callback frequency, loan officer capacity. Track these metrics weekly during implementation. Use data to optimize and justify continued investment.

• Treat adoption as seriously as implementation. Technology that your team doesn't use delivers zero ROI regardless of capability. Identify internal champions who understand both the technology and daily operations. Provide hands-on training that demonstrates immediate value. Listen to team feedback and adjust workflows accordingly.

Your lean structure, focused scope, and ability to move quickly are exactly what enables you to deploy, prove value, and scale effectively. These aren't constraints to work around—they're strategic assets to leverage.

Ready to build your IA roadmap with frameworks designed for IMB operations? Download our full white paper, "The Case for Intelligent Automation in Mortgage Lending," for comprehensive research findings and implementation frameworks for IMBs deploying IA strategically.

Download the white paper here.

This analysis and downloadable white paper are based on the Intelligent Automation Research 2025, conducted by American Banker/National Mortgage News and sponsored by nCino, surveying 253 financial services leaders including credit unions, banks, and mortgage companies.