MCT was fortunate to have the opportunity to sit down with Ashley Puckett, Senior Capital Markets Analyst at Vellum Mortgage, to discuss her experience with MCT’s software, services, and expertise.
Ms. Puckett and her team needed a better system that was easy to understand, easy to use, and saved them time. Through MCT’s software and services, Vellum Mortgage has improved profitability, efficiency, and added new investors. To accomplish this goal, they rely on BAM Marketplace, MCTlive!, and the Business Intelligence tool.
In this case study, Ms. Puckett describes how MCTlive!, BAM Marketplace, and the Business Intelligence tool improved efficiency across her team and helped find new investors for Vellum Mortgage.
Ashley Puckett
Senior Capital Markets Analyst, Vellum Mortgage
Ms. Puckett is an experienced Secondary Marketing and Mortgage Capital Markets professional with over a decade of front and back-end mortgage operations experience. Ms. Puckett’s goal is to improve the loan sale profitability and efficiency for Vellum Mortgage. She turned to MCT’s software, services, and expertise to help support her goals.
Vellum Mortgage Adds Efficiency Through Automation
Vellum Mortgage has taken advantage of BAM Marketplace, MCTlive!, and MCT’s Business Intelligence tool to achieve a more seamless loan sale experience for everyone on their team. Learn more about these tools below.
BAM Marketplace – The world’s first truly open mortgage loan exchange, where buyers can bid regardless of approval status, and sellers receive automated live pricing from every buyer on the platform. A revolutionary new era of maximized liquidity, eliminated barriers, and optimized execution is waiting for you.
MCTlive! – A powerful platform available for day-to-day loan pipeline management, trade positions management, and loan sale best execution. MCTlive! automates repetitive tasks and frees your time for other high-value functions.
Business Intelligence Tool – The Business Intelligence group’s powerful secondary market analytics arms you with actionable data insights in real-time. Lenders are empowered to understand the market, optimize their loan sales, and improve performance relative to their peers by utilizing the Business Intelligence Platform, the most comprehensive secondary market analytics tool on the market.
What are three words that describe your experience with MCT?
“Amazing, efficient, well-supported.”
– Ashley Puckett, Vellum Mortgage
Summary of Vellum Mortgage’s Top Takeaways:
BAM Marketplace, MCTlive!, and the Business Intelligence tool have all contributed to Vellum Mortgage’s more efficient loan sale process. MCT provides support, expertise, and innovative software solutions to support the growth and goals of our clients.
In this section, Ms. Puckett highlights the benefits of working with MCT’s services and support team.
Profitability
“We have improved our profitability through MCT’s AOT program. Utilizing the Business Intelligence tool, we have been able to see what our pickup and savings have been by using AOTs. By May of 2023, we had saved close to $50,000, which is very significant.”
Dollars Saved through AOTs
Investor Set Optimization
“I always send my bid tapes out to my approved and unapproved investors in BAM Marketplace. It’s great to see those shadow bids come in then decide if we want to sign up with a certain investor because their executions have been strong lately.”
New investors added
Efficiency
“With MCT, everything is saved in the system and makes it fast and easy. We are saving about 2-4 hours a week on average by not having to run those jobs and make everyone get out of the system to do so.”
Hours a month saved with MCT
Ease-of-Use
“I want to reiterate the ease of actually using the platform. I feel so comfortable using the platform after just being introduced to it in a very short amount of time.”
Intuitive and easy-to-use-platform
Full Interview: Vellum Mortgage
Why did you make the switch from your last provider to MCT?
We decided to make the switch due to the platform itself. MCT’s platform is great and all-encompassing. There’s nothing hidden within the platform and the customer support group has been good.
We made the switch and now have this incredible support team behind us and the data is right there. I don’t have to go searching for anything and everything flows together and makes more sense.
What are some of the notable improvements to your process you noticed when getting started with MCT?
The dashboard itself. You have all of your data and information that you need to make a decision on one screen. You’re not flipping through screens or programs to view your pipelines, where your position is, or your loan sale population. This allows me to move on to what I need to do for the company itself, not wasting time. That was the first noticeable improvement in our company.
What was the onboarding experience like?
We were very excited to get onboarded and the whole onboarding process and implementation was very smooth. Honestly, I’ve been through a couple of different onboarding transitions and this one was by far the easiest.
Chris Anderson and Cody Echols walked us through what the process would look like, what they would need from us, and what we would need from them. We went step-by-step going through the process easily. We sent over a few custom fields that we used for calculations and MCT was able to fill out our profile within the system and we were ready to use. We had given pretty much everything over and were on the same page within a month before we went live.
Describe your loan sale process before MCT.
It was very inconvenient. If we needed to load bids back into the old system everyone would need to exit. The tapes would then be loaded in, but even then, the pricing and loan level information itself was not nearly as fast as it is with MCT.
With MCT, the ease of multitasking to complete a loan sale is something we were missing out on with our previous service. I can have two different tabs open to move loans and also execute on that loan sale at the same time. I can be executing my loan sale on one tab and already have my trades queued up on a separate tab then do it all at the same time. With my previous system, I had to execute the loan sale and run another job one by one. I also had to use the phone to call back and forth because we had to do all the trading outside of the system.
You have said MCTlive! has made an impact. Why is that?
MCTlive! is the bread and butter of MCT’s products. It is super simple due to the TBA trading and loan sale areas accessible within the platform. It is clear there has been a lot of back-end UX work done for end-users.
I can get my loan sale all set up to go in one tab. And at the same time, I can handle the trades I want to take out in another tab. This is handy because many other companies don’t let you do that. In those cases, you end up waiting on others to finish their tasks before you can move forward with yours. Sometimes the system even crashes and then everyone has to start over. This just wastes so much time that could’ve been used to get things done.
The master trader tab is also a great feature as it lets me put out a bid and see all the broker-dealers. Rolling and swapping is also made very easy and accessible on the platform. Plus, everything gets saved in the system and I believe the broker-dealers also get a report showing how their estimates compared. We’ve definitely noticed that our broker-dealers have been more competitive with their pricing when we send out TBAs.
Any examples of how BAM Marketplace has assisted in your loan sale process?
I can refresh my Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pricing, get everything together, and take our time really looking at loan level to see where we’d like to execute our loans.
I always send my bid tapes out to my approved and unapproved investors in BAM Marketplace. It’s great to see those shadow bids come in and then decide if we want to sign up with a certain investor because their executions have been strong lately.
New investors through shadow bidding on BAM Marketplace
Similarly, we have had several investors reach out to us using this process and we’ve ended up signing up with them. With using BAM during the loan sale process, you have your market color report and are able to see the difference between everyone right then and there. We have gotten two or three new investors through this process.
Have you seen any profitability or efficiency pickups?
Dollars Saved Through AOT with MCT
We have definitely improved our profitability through MCT’s AOT program. Utilizing the Business Intelligence tool, we have been able to see what our pickup and savings have been by using AOTs. By May of 2023 we had saved close to $50,000, which is very significant.
With the way the market is, sometimes those spreads are wide so it’s great to take advantage of the system and not have to do your traditional AOT where you’re sending it everywhere.
With MCT, everything is saved in the system and makes it fast and easy. We are saving about 2-4 hours a week on average just by not having to run those jobs and make everyone get out of the system to do so.
Since you have switched from your previous provider, what do you think is the main difference between MCT and competitors?
The systems and support stands out the most. I feel very supported by our group that we utilize with MCT by knowing that a lot of them come from a secondary market background so they’ve actually done my job before and understand what I’m going through. They are also always able to make a quick fix. Having that support for our own team is a major advantage.
Then the dashboard itself and all the data provided is fantastic. On the BI tool, for one, having your peer-to-peer comparison and investor comparison provides us with a lot of necessary intel. People like to talk big, but with the data MCT’s platform provides, you can actually see the proof. You can determine if they do have as big of a market share or volume from clients as they claim.
Lastly, I want to reiterate the ease of actually using the platform. I feel so comfortable using the platform after just being introduced to it in a very short amount of time.
Case Study Summary: Vellum Mortgage
BAM Marketplace, MCTlive!, and the Business Intelligence tool have all worked together to improve profitability and efficiency for Vellum Mortgage. They have saved money, time, and headaches by choosing to switch from their old provider to MCT. By choosing MCT, they conduct business on a software system that feels easy to use and understand while feeling constantly supported by a team of secondary experts.
MCTlive! – A powerful platform available for day-to-day loan pipeline management, trade positions management, and loan sale best execution. MCTlive! automates repetitive tasks and frees your time for other high-value functions.
BAM Marketplace – The world’s first truly open mortgage loan exchange, where buyers can bid regardless of approval status, and sellers receive automated live pricing from every buyer on the platform. A revolutionary new era of maximized liquidity, eliminated barriers, and optimized execution is waiting for you.
Business Intelligence – The Business Intelligence Group’s powerful secondary market analytics arms you with actionable data insights in real time. Lenders are empowered to understand the market, optimize their loan sales, and improve performance relative to their peers by utilizing the Business Intelligence Platform, the most comprehensive secondary market analytics tool on the market.
FURTHER READING – Additional Case Studies
Case Study – NBH Bank Leverages 10-Day MCT Rapid Onboarding – In this case study, Ajay Timothy and Thia Kaleta of NBH Bank describe their process getting started with MCT and how they were able to get mortgage pipeline hedging and best execution loan sales up and running in just ten days.
About MCT
For over two decades, MCT has been a leading source of innovation for the mortgage secondary market. Melding deep subject matter expertise with a passion for emerging technologies and clients, MCT is the de facto leader in innovative mortgage capital markets technology. From architecting modern best execution loan sales to launching the most successful and advanced marketplace for mortgage-related assets, lenders, investors, and network partners all benefit from MCT’s stewardship. MCT’s technology and know-how continues to revolutionize how mortgage assets are priced, locked, protected, valued, and exchanged – offering clients the tools to thrive under any market condition.
- Growing for Your Needs – Since 2001, MCT has grown from a pipeline hedging services specialist into a fully integrated provider of capital markets services & software.
- Capital Markets Expertise – Through a combination of unparalleled industry experience and relentless focus on data, MCT is pioneering the future of capital markets technology. From MCTlive!, to MSRlive!, to our award-winning Bid Auction Manager (BAM) – MCT pushes the envelope to exceed client expectations.
- Clients & Employees Agree – MCT delivers unparalleled customer service and prides itself on being a regular winner of San Diego’s “Best Place To Work” Award.
Contact us to discover how MCT can improve efficiency in your loan sale process!
