The article is a synopsis of the role of the IT staff in financial service providing organizations which engage in residential and commercial mortgage servicing, consumer unsecured debt collections, loan origination services, and business process outsourcing to third parties.
IT IN FINANCIAL SERVICES
In the financial servicing arena the role of the IT staff is to offer automated, comprehensive, functionally integrated servicing systems to support all servicing functions. The IT staff delivers process driven technology solutions, manages and automates servicing operations, optimizes efficiencies and reduces costs – fundamentally re-engineering and streamlining the servicing processes followed.
The fundamental functions of the IT staff are:
- Design/Development/Testing and Support of applications and tools for real estate, mortgage servicing etc. For instance advanced technology is applied in collection management activities. Loans are classified at the outset in different delinquency categories (such as 1-29 days, 30+ days and so on). Customer service representatives contact delinquent borrowers. Calls are prioritized by customer payment behavior, whether loans are newly boarded, and time zone. Here software is used to determine the best time of day to call such delinquent borrowers based on previous contacts. Artificial intelligence tools are used for loans that are delinquent to predict call sequence, present call scripts to the collector, and document the flow of the scripts. Internet protocol systems are used to ensure proper telephone connection to all sites and so on.
- Servicing/Infrastructure support of Contact Centers to assist customer service representatives in responding quickly and accurately to customer inquiries. State-of-the-art technology is used to support a robust set of procedures for performing some of the customer contact functions such as call resolution, providing borrowers with a number of self-service options through an interactive website, obtaining loan information and making payments through interactive voice response unit that borrowers can use etc. Managing such servicing activities usually include maintaining of Servers, Networks, IT Telephony systems, Operating Systems, Databases, tools like Citrix etc.
KEY COMPETENCIES
The section that follows supports a list of knowledge and skills/abilities (competencies) that are critical to the success of nearly every role engaged in technology services and development in financial service providing organizations. The common knowledge and skills/abilities needed across the roles are:
- Business and Process knowledge- Although some roles are focused very specifically around certain aspects of understanding and converting business requirements, every role in technology services and development should have awareness and sensitivity to the business processes and needs. Apart from this, process knowledge also needs to be strong, for testing of functionality at every stage in technology development.
- Strong written and oral communication skills- To communicate status to the appropriate level of detail and in a timely fashion.
- Quantitative ability -The ability for computation and application
- Problem solving - The ability to approach solutions from multiple perspectives and exercise judgment when solving problems.
- Lifelong learning – The perspective of continuous learning and need for skills renewal which is critical in a high-change industry like technology development.
- Strong team collaboration skills- The ability to work well with teams
This article reflects the information shared by an industry professional during the course of the guest lecture series organized at MeritTrac.
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