New role has a different focus, but affordability still top of mind
After a 30-year stint at Fannie Mae, most would call it a career and ride off into the sunset. Not Steve Pawlowski (pictured), who was recently tapped for a key post at Mortgage Capital Trading Inc.
MCT appointed Pawlowski head of technology solutions. In its corporate literature, MCT boasts of its status as “de facto leader in innovative capital markets technology.” In his new role, Pawlowski will be responsible for expanding the company’s record of driving efficiency and liquidity in the secondary market, officials said.
“I was at Fannie Mae for a long time,” Pawlowski said of his 32-year stint with the government-sponsored enterprise. “Mortgage Capital Trading is a very complex company that does many things in many different domains in the mortgage industry from the front end, to capital markets, to servicing,” he added during a telephone interview with Mortgage Professional America.
Getting accustomed to a keener focus
The big difference in the job switch for Pawlowski is its singular focus, he suggested: “So the transition is getting used to not wearing multiple hats,” he said.
“At Fannie Mae, I was head of single-family products and solutions, focusing on the digital business stream and model. I was really responsible for maintaining those technology tools for the front end and for the underwriting and for appraisals. I also managed the capital markets platform which included all our tools and training services and capabilities. And in the servicing space, maintaining all the tools and products that reside in that domain as well.”
Yet he still has an eye toward affordability in his new role as was the key focus in his last job, he noted. “Our role was to provide liquidity and stability in the marketplace no matter what the market conditions were,” he said. “Our mission was around making sure we provided access to credit, affordable products and services out there for first-time homebuyers.”
The job at MCT is a little different: “At MCT, it’s more focused on the capital markets space, ensuring that clients have easy access.”
MCT may be less focused on affordable housing, but that doesn’t mean it’s completely off the table: “At some point, we would love to be able to alternatively help lenders individually align their back-end pricing more closely to their front-end pricing so they can push those advantages to the borrower. It’s a vision, a goal, we’d like to get to at some point.”
COO touts Pawlowski
At MCT, Pawlowski will report directly to COO Phil Rasori. In a public statement, Rasori echoed the new hire’s thoughts on pricing alignment. “Steve’s technology leadership while at Fannie Mae heralded a new era of capital markets transparency to the lender,” Rasori said. “MCT is building on that effort in numerous ways, including initiatives to bring back-end pricing closer to the front-end pricing that mortgage borrowers receive.”
MCT Marketplace users include 30% of all correspondent sellers and over 90% of active correspondent buyers, making it the largest whole loan exchange by number of participants in the US market.
Pawlowski noted his familiarity with MCT well before joining the firm: “MCT was the fastest and most comprehensive technology partner I worked with on API development while at Fannie Mae,” he said. “I couldn’t be more excited to apply my institutional expertise to this agile and committed technology development team.”
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