2016 MBA Annual Convention Recap

It’s that time of the year again! No, not Thanksgiving or Christmas, I’m referring to the MBA Annual Convention. Just a few short weeks ago, the best and brightest minds in the mortgage industry headed to the industry’s most important event of the year with the goal of absorbing as much information as possible from the various keynote speakers, sessions and other attendees moving about the convention center.

The 2016 MBA Annual Convention took place in windy Boston, Mass. where close to 200 of the mortgage industry’s leading companies showcased their latest and greatest innovations for hundreds of attendees, including a surprise appearance from actor Kevin Costner. In years past, technology has taken center stage at MBA and this year continued along that same theme.

In the wake of growing focus on the borrower experience, we saw and heard a lot about the “digital mortgage” and how the industry can leverage new and existing technologies to better manage the mortgage process. While the concept of digitizing the mortgage industry is not new, many attendees were heavily focused on it, specifically around eSigning and eClosing.

Many attendees continued to be highly interested in HMDA and UCD, as they develop their plans for managing each in terms of business and technology processes. While HMDA and UCD are topics that have been highlighted within the industry for the last several years, we saw many attendees using MBA Annual as an opportunity to gauge the capabilities of other technology platforms against their own as they monitor and adjust their own strategies for HMDA and UCD.

Throughout the multi-level, multi-room expo hall, the show maintained a positive buzz, which seemed to echo the industry’s mood in general as the mortgage industry continues to come back from the subprime crisis. With no black cloud hanging over the industry, we’ve seen lenders once again begin to invest in new technologies and initiatives to not only better themselves internally, but also enhance the borrower’s experience.

Now that MBA Annual has come and gone for 2016, we look forward to the year ahead for the mortgage industry and will be ready to descend upon the city of Denver for the 2017 convention.