Intent on vying with Google Cloud and Amazon Web Services to win business from the mortgage and banking industries, Microsoft is bolstering its cloud capabilities with a new offering tailored to meeting the privacy, security and regulatory compliance needs of financial services companies.
Microsoft Cloud for Financial Services integrates cloud services across Microsoft’s public cloud offerings — Microsoft Azure, Microsoft 365, Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform.
The new service, which has been in preview with companies including Navy Federal Credit Union and Virgin Money UK, launched Nov. 1. Partners at launch include Mortgage365 and Finastra, the developer of the Fusion Mortgagebot platform.
Bill Borden
“The pandemic cemented the value of digitization and digital channels in the financial services industry — and created new expectations with customers and employees,” said Microsoft executive Bill Borden in a blog post detailing the capabilities of Microsoft Cloud for Financial Services.
Borden said financial services companies are turning to cloud technologies and services to “accelerate their digital agendas to better serve their clients and empower employees, while at the same time continuing to reduce the costs of running their businesses.”
Microsoft’s customers, he said, “have been clear that they need cloud services tailored to their specific needs and challenges.”
Google Cloud launched its own purpose-built solution for the mortgage industry, Lending DocAI, in April. Google says partners like Roostify and Mr. Cooper can cut business processing costs by up to 60 percent by automating data entry and creating and customizing document processing workflows.
Black Knight’s AI-powered mortgage solution, Underwriter Assist, runs on Amazon Web Services (AWS), using Amazon Textract and mortgage-specific algorithms developed by Black Knight to extract data from documents like W2s and pay stubs.
Last week, the nation’s biggest mortgage lender, Rocket Mortgage, announced it’s making mortgage origination technology available as an end-to-end “mortgage-as-a-service” through Salesforce Financial Services Cloud to smaller banks and credit unions.
Borden said Microsoft Cloud for Financial Services is also aimed at optimizing business processes, and is “underpinned by an industry data model, with new capabilities and customization unique to the financial services industry.”
Unified customer profiles provide “a 360-degree view of the customer by bringing together financial, behavioral, and demographic data,” Borden said, and a collaboration manager enables automation and collaboration between front and back offices.
Security enhancements include account protection at the digital identity account layer to protect against bot attacks, fake account creation, account takeover and fraudulent account access.
Denver, Colorado-based Mortgage365 said in an announcement that its Software as a Service (SaaS) platform is “optimized for financial services organizations who embrace the Microsoft Cloud,” providing “100 percent utilization of Microsoft’s data privacy and security controls, as well as assertions for protection of customer data that is stored exclusively within the Microsoft Cloud.”
Available through the Microsoft AppSource marketplace, Mortgage365 allows lenders to price loans, view property valuations, build comprehensive loan scenarios, create and manage loan origination system loans, and send tailored marketing to borrowers.
Finastra’s Fusion Mortgagebot LOS is a cloud-based “an all-in-one loan origination system that supports retail, wholesale and correspondent mortgage lending” that allows borrowers to explore rates, fees and products, and move seamlessly between channels to complete loan applications and review disclosures.
A Finastra spokesperson said while Finastra is a Microsoft Cloud for Financial Services partner, its mortgage solutions — Fusion Mortagebot LOS and Fusion Originate Mortgagebot –are currently hosted on Microsoft Azure.
“We haven’t adopted the Cloud For Financial Services model yet for our mortgage solutions, but product management has had conversations with Microsoft about it and is evaluating it in the roadmap,” the spokesperson said.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to clarify that Finastra’s mortgage solutions are currently hosted on Microsoft Azure.