Carol H Tucker Passionate about knowledge management and organizational development, expert in loan servicing, virtual world denizen and community facilitator, and a DISNEY fan
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beladona Memorial Be warned:in this very rich environment where you can immerse yourself so completely, your emotions will become engaged -- and not everyone is cognizant of that. Among the many excellent features of SL, there is no auto-return on hearts, so be wary of where your's wanders...
Yesterday my boss came to me and asked if I could help one of our member Credit Unions by forwarding a resume to them. We got into a bit of a discussion at that point because I happen to know what the opening there is for -- recently their Loan Operations Manager moved on -- and the resume we had was for a Loan Adminstration Assistant. I argued that the woman was not qualified for the position; he argued that she could be trained. I pointed out that when most lenders speak of Loan Servicing, they are actually thinking about Loan and/or Credit Administration, but Loan Ops is a different function, and we agreed to disagree at that point...
Loan Servicing actually has four components:
Loan Operations -- working with the Loan Accounting System [LAS] to translate the terms and conditions of the loan documentation executed at settlement onto a core processing system that will track the accruals, payments, billings, notices, exceptions [receipt of documents, loan covenants, and on-going ticklers e.g. finacial statements and insurance are the most common] and escrow [if applicable]. Most of the customers are internal; for example, because everything done on the LAS impacts the balance sheet and income statement, this area works closely with the Accounting Department, providing reconciliations and explanations of variances. There is also external customer contact through billing statements and notices' follow-up.
Loan Administration -- working with the physical files, taking the exceptions reporting and addressing missing items. This area works most closely with the lenders, closers and Credit Administration because it is involved with risk management and has a great deal of external customer contact
Reporting -- providing lenders, accounting and senior management with the information needed to stay fully informed as to what is going on with their loan portfolio
Collections -- I used to tell borrowers when I was a loan officer, "The documents basically say this: we are nice people and we gave you this money. You are nice people and you are going to pay us back." When there is a hiccup with that, then this department gets involved. The amount of savvy needed varies according to the needs of the portfolio -- everything from "dialing for dollars" [trying to get that late payment in before the 30 day point] to Special Asset management.
Now in a large shop, these functions have dedicated personnel. In a smaller shop, they get combined, but the person filling the roles has to have sufficient KSA to perform each function. The problem that I have run into again and again is that lenders easily perceive the need for Loan Admin and Collections, but figure that Loan Ops and Reporting can be "picked up" easily.
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