Wave Systems Corp. (fka WAVXQ)

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Preaching To The Choir: eSign Systems...

By Anthony Garritano
June 16, 2008

http://www.mortgage-technology.com/plus/blog/?id=385

In the last edition of this blog I talked about e-signature and e-mortgage adoption. Sure, progress has been slow, but we’ve seen a huge increase in e-notes registered on MERS in the last six months and in the overall number of e-mortgages done in the past 12 months. Now, a prominent vendor has stepped up as well, which can’t hurt.

Specifically, Xerox Mortgage Services has added electronic signature and electronic vaulting capabilities to its BlitzDocs Collaboration Suite, an e-sharing network, to help its lender clients realize the benefits of the hybrid e-mortgage. Currently BlitzDocs supports paper, imaged and electronic loan documents.

So what’s the big deal? It’s just another vendor doing e-signatures and e-vaulting, right? Wrong. The more vendors that make this technology available to the market, the better the chances of adoption. And adding the Xerox name to the mix can be a big boon for “e” adoption.

“We’ve been talking about this for a long time,” said Greg Smith, vice president, Xerox Mortgage Services. “Part of this is about technology and part of it is about timing. After an extensive search, I believe the change in the industry is accelerating demand for e-mortgages. We had a serious meeting with e-signature vendor Wave at the MBA last year. They were very interested in working with us because of our footprint and our affiliation with Xerox.

“The way we see it, it’s about paperless, imaging and electronic, PIE. Lenders will need to support multiple ways to distribute docs. We put imaged documents into BlitzDocs now. So, we can now allow for e-signatures on all those imaged documents. We can also be a hosted e-vault. There are others out there offering e-vaults, but given the capability of Xerox we can be more trusted. Further, we’ve had interest in e-vaulting from clients that want us to host that environment.”

The e-signature technology now used in BlitzDocs is licensed through eSign Systems, a division of Wave Systems Corp. Mortgage participants can now sign new or refinanced home loans online by simply pointing their mouse to, and clicking on the document’s signature line. Electronically signed documents are then securely managed and stored in a repository, known as an electronic vault. Audit tracking detects where the documents travel throughout the system to keep tabs on any transactions made during the loan lifecycle. The graphical user interface (as seen below) is very user friendly and simulates a “real” signature with just one click.

But why do I think Xerox has as good, if not a better shot at converting lenders as other vendors already in the space? Simple, their clients are clients because they’ve already chosen to go paperless and see it as a big enough priority that they’ve put their money where their mouth is and have invested in BlitzDocs.

It’s great for loan origination vendors, doc prep and doc delivery vendors to add on this technology as an option, and they may get some adoption, but their clients are used to doing business a certain way and are now being given an alternative vs. BlizDocs clients who already have said that they prefer to be paperless and are using BlitzDocs for that express purpose. Like the title of this blog suggests, it’s like preaching to the choir.

I think Greg Smith said it best when he told me, “We have customers delivering to Wells Fargo today. We convert paper documents to images and deliver it to Wells electronically. If they do e-notes through MERS we can deliver to MERS as well. We can act as a transitional player that helps lenders go paperless, then to hybrid e-mortgages and eventually to full e-mortgages. This will just be an extension of our investor delivery model.”