This interview is part of our Innovator of the Year series— highlighting the most innovative in banking. Meet the rest of the winners here.
Meet ICE Mortgage Technology, winner of this year’s Digital Driver award, part of Kinective’s Innovator of the Year Award series. The Digital Driver award recognizes the fintech company leading the way with excellent service, trailblazing solutions, and consistently reliable technology for clients.
We had the pleasure of sitting down with Jonas Moe, SVP of Marketing and Market Strategy, to learn how their client-first approach has granted them an outstanding relationship and gained the trust of roughly 3200 lenders.
How does ICE provide excellent service and stand out from competitors?
We understand there’s competition in the market, but ultimately we’re really focused on what we can do for our clients, which leads to us working with them directly. We’re committed to being out there with our clients to define their strategy to help them succeed in their market. There’s a lot of really cool technology out there, but if it doesn’t solve an actual problem for your client, you’re just creating cool (but unusable) tech.
What are some traditional barriers that your products overcome?
Every day you have on the origination cycle, it’s about $40 in true cost to a lender. Every day you add on the closing cycle, it’s about $62. So, it’s roughly $100 just by adding a day here and there— and that cycle can be reduced. We really try to understand the real-world impact on a lender.
If we can equate our value to the time that we’re able to reduce off the origination cycle, then we’ve added more value than the money our lenders are paying us for our technology— which is exactly why our clients trust us.
What advice would you give to other companies seeking to innovate in a similar way?
The greatest advice I’ve ever gotten, and it’s now something I’d share with anyone, is that the innovator’s goal is to provide Nordstrom-level service to clients. For those who aren’t familiar, Nordstrom has made a reputation for itself going above and beyond in customer support— including finding a way for someone to return an old tire to their store. I think that’s really the DNA of ICE, we want to be close with our clients. I think any innovator that’s trying to change the market needs to first change the market paradigm.
The Banking industry is tied to the client journey— both on the borrower side and on the lender side— it’s important to understand in-depth where the pain points are to provide immense value.
