FICS^®' Exceptional Customer Service and Training Responsible for 19-Year Relationship with Cornerstone Home Lending

Cornerstone Home Lending (formerly known as Cornerstone Mortgage Company), founded in 1988 in Houston, has the fourth-largest production volume of all retail non-bank mortgage companies in the United States. With 74 branches in 15 states, the company distributed $3.1 billion in residential loans in 2011.

When considering technology to service their loans, Cornerstone Home Lending needed an open and flexible software system that provided detailed and easy to use reports. Over the years, the company has both sold loans to investors and retained loans for servicing in-house, so they required a platform that could easily import and export data, as well as handle servicing for both short-term and long-term loans.

Cornerstone Home Lending has relied on Dallas-based Financial Industry Computer Systems, Inc.’s (FICS^®) residential loan servicing software, Mortgage Servicer^®, for nearly two decades. Mortgage Servicer automates servicing functions including escrow administration, collections, investor accounting, payment processing, loss mitigation and year-end reporting. The software also provides the capability to automate and reduce the time spent on monthly regulatory reports.

“Mortgage Servicer is incredibly easy to use. The software, when combined with SAP^® Crystal Reports^®, provides us with a comprehensive reporting solution,” said Lisa Haynes, vice president of Loan Servicing. “The strong customer support and intuitive interface facilitate workflow efficiencies and help new employees quickly learn the program.”

In addition, Haynes cited compliance with all servicing regulations as another strength of the Mortgage Servicer software. “Compliance issues are not a problem with FICS,” she said. “FICS regularly updates the software to reflect the ever-changing industry developments and government regulations.”

Comprehensive Reporting Capabilities

Cornerstone Home Lending says one of the primary benefits to using Mortgage Servicer is the ability to generate comprehensive reports and notices, which can be used to report to investors, regulators and company executives. “One of the biggest time saving devices for our organization is the ability to generate the bundled investor reports as well as internal custom reports through Crystal Reports’ integration with Mortgage Servicer,” said Haynes. “This function enables our company to generate any report we might need and easily export them into a variety of file formats. The reports are very useful for our management team and help with overseeing subservicers, saving valuable time.”

Mortgage Servicer also provides Cornerstone Home Lending with comprehensive and flexible investor accounting tools. Because Mortgage Servicer supports all industry-standard reporting methods - reconciliation, remittance, delinquency, prepaid and trial balance reports, among others - the organization is able to cost-efficiently manage its portfolio without the expense of additional staff.

Flexible Database Supports Custom Servicing Needs

Haynes also said the flexibility of Mortgage Servicer has helped them develop custom workflows for their specific business needs. Cornerstone Home Lending developed a database that includes information from their front-end system and Mortgage Servicer. Since Mortgage Servicer utilizes an open database connectivity, data can easily be extracted to send a complete file, containing all origination and servicing data, to outside companies the lender does business with. According to Haynes, this solution has enabled Cornerstone Home Lending to have a fully automated system and go paperless.

Comprehensive Training and Personal Customer Service

FICS places considerable emphasis on training and customer service, which Haynes claimed as a key reason that the two-decade relationship between FICS and Cornerstone Home Lending has been so successful. She reports that every time her staff calls FICS support, the same customer service representative helps them immediately. Even more importantly, she added that the FICS team always takes the necessary time to make sure that Cornerstone Home Lending’s issue is resolved and that they are completely satisfied.

“FICS employees have proven to be very knowledgeable, courteous and ready to work with us,” said Haynes. “The personalized level of service FICS provides shows us that they truly care about our success. I’m a valued person, not a ticket number.”

About Cornerstone Home Lending

Cornerstone Home Lending was founded in 1988 in Houston, Texas. The independently-owned organization has the fourth-largest production volume of all retail non-bank mortgage companies in the United States. The company prides itself on its industry-wide reputation for integrity, high-trust customer service and on-time closings. Cornerstone Home Lending has 74 branches in 15 states, and is licensed to lend in 48 states and the District of Columbia.
For more information, visit the company’s website at www.houseloan.com.

About FICS

Founded in 1983 and headquartered in Dallas, Texas, Financial Industry Computer Systems, Inc. (FICS), specializes in providing flexible, comprehensive residential and commercial technology solutions to the mortgage industry. FICS' systems are designed to operate on Microsoft^® Windows^® platforms with the most recent solutions written using .NET Framework that include a rich Windows^® Presentation Foundation user interface and multi-tiered shareable services. The company also provides innovative document management and web-based capabilities into its full suite of products. Additional information about FICS is available via the company's website at www.FICS.com.