Midsize bank outsources post-closing process to India

As the real estate and mortgage lending industries move toward paperless closings, headway is being made at both ends of the process. While many lenders now use sophisticated loan-origination systems, there's almost inevitably a stack of paperwork to contend with at closing. After closing, lenders conduct painstaking quality-assurance reviews, doublechecking mountains of documents to confirm they are internally consistent and meet the underwriting and servicing requirements of secondary-market purchasers. It might not seem obvious, but moving the post-closing process into the digital realm by converting paper forms into digital files represents progress on the road to paperless closings. According to a midsized lender that's believed to be the first to outsource the post-closing process, its new capabilities are a "Trojan horse" that's speeding the adoption of paperless processes elsewhere in the company. With $7.25 billion in residential loans funded in 2006, First National Bank of...