"It meant adapting to new ways of doing business and adopting new technology"
The global health emergency of the past two years has served to emphasize the role communications technology and digital platforms play in steering the course of the mortgage industry – in turn giving rise to trends that shape these technologies themselves.
Eric Larocque, managing director of sales and marketing originations at Community Trust, said that the increased prominence of tech platforms was mainly driven by “the need for safety and accessibility.”
“When I think about it, the technology really wasn’t something that was new, but the behaviours were and it really forced individuals to take different behaviours to achieve the outcomes, the desired outcomes,” Larocque said.
“And now for many of them, it meant adapting to new ways of doing business and adopting new technology. But the reality is, is the technology was already there. It just really needed to be put in play to deliver on the needs of the Canadians during the pandemic.”
Read more: The role of technology in the mortgage industry
The widespread fears of brokers being phased out by tech innovations also proved groundless, Larocque said.
“Once we started using the technology, we actually realized that we were much closer than we thought we could be. We weren’t removed; in fact, we were closer and more accessible to one another than we had ever been before,” he said.
The greater convenience and transparency facilitated by ever-evolving technology was an invaluable boon to the industry.
“These were new ways of doing business and we really had to ensure that there was a true value exchange being offered,” he said. “If we are going to ask our partners to change their business or to try something new, we had to ensure there was a value back to them and essentially answer the question, ‘What’s in it for me?’”
This ethos was crystallized in the Community Trust Cafe broker portal, which was launched last year.
“We wanted to ensure that every interaction we had with our broker partners was meaningful and allowed them to get further and further along the path of what they were looking to do, whether it was closing on a transaction, whether it was seeking information on products or policies, or whether they simply needed to connect with somebody at Community Trust,” Larocque said.
