A new year and a new commitment

WELCOME TO 2017! I hope everyone had an enjoyable holiday and is looking forward to a sensational and prosperous new year.

I can tell you that everyone at Home Trust is excited about the opportunities that lie ahead for our clients, our company and our industry. We’ve made great progress on a number of internal initiatives, and based on the successful implementation of these new programs, I have some exciting news I’d like to share with you. But first, I’d like to provide you with a quick update on Home Trust’s journey over the past year and a half.

I’m sure most of you recall Home Trust’s HIP+ transformation program. HIP+ launched as a multi-phase project that kicked off a comprehensive review of our internal processes. Based on our findings, we have since introduced a series of procedural and workflow enhancements to realize the opportunities revealed by our review.

I’ve provided several updates on our progress in earlier articles in this publication, as well as other direct communications we’ve sent out to all our broker partners. Now I’d like to tell you about the completion of another major milestone that we believe will dramatically enhance our service offering to the broker community.

The Home Trust service level commitment
Home Trust is launching a new service level commitment designed to ensure that, for all Classic mortgage applications you submit to Home Trust, you will receive a confirmation that we’ve received the application and have completed the initial review within six business hours of receiving the deal.

Our goal is to provide a commitment on approved applications back to you as quickly as possible. However, in order to accomplish that objective, we require your assistance to ensure we have the information we need to complete an effective review.

To help our broker partners understand what we need as part of the initial application, we’ve recently hosted a series of webinars and other learning opportunities. These sessions provided information on how to put together deals that include the necessary details to enable our review team to process each file. We’ve also participated in a series of broker-sponsored training conferences designed to provide on-staff brokers with this same information. If you’d like to have a Home Trust representative meet with your team, please contact your business development manager for more information.

Preparing for an increase in Alt A business
I know this has been a long time in the works, and I do appreciate your patience as we’ve completed the process changes and other enhancements necessary to bring this all together. I am confident – and hope you will agree – that our actions will help ensure we never lose sight of the fundamentals of service excellence, great quality and maintaining a sharp focus on the needs of the customer.

I’m also confident that these efforts will benefit us all and prepare our industry for the anticipated growth in demand for alternative mortgages in light of the latest round of regulatory changes.

The amendments to the Canadian mortgage rules announced late last year by the federal government – particularly around insurability and high-ratio loan criteria – place Home Trust in a strengthened position to provide for the needs of all of your clients. We remain committed to delivering a full suite of products and will soon introduce new products for refinances and conventional uninsured rentals. We are also renewing our focus on mortgage switches and transfers, and will have more details in the coming weeks.

Enhancing our focus on the client
We truly value the work of our broker partners, and we want to provide more direct support to help you build your business. One of the ways we pledge to address this is by providing information you can share with your clients. Sending out educational content is an excellent way to build client relationships while providing a valuable service that helps inform the consumer about one of the biggest financial decisions they are likely to make.

With the launch of the Home Trust Mortgages Blog (blog.hometrust.ca) last June, we’ve compiled a series of articles ranging from discussions on general market conditions to specific topics such as how to improve your credit score. We encourage you to share these articles through your social media channels, as we believe helping borrowers become better informed reflects positively on our industry.

Finally, a few words about some refinements we’ve been making to the look and feel of our marketing materials and other printed and digital information. We’ve adopted a cleaner format that is easier to read and combined that with clear, strong, consistent messaging. The use of black-and white imagery is also deliberate – unlike colour images, which can draw the viewer’s attention away from the foreground, blackand- white images encourage the viewer to focus on the subject of the image and the content of the material.

This is the perfect metaphor to describe the Home Trust approach. We cut through the background clutter to focus on each client’s specific circumstances and take the time to truly understand each individual story. We then draw upon our long-standing experience in serving the alternative market to provide the mortgage solution best suited to your client.


Pino Decina is the EVP of residential mortgages at Home Trust. To learn more about the latest Home Trust initiatives, visit www.hometrust.ca.