The solutions introduced during the pandemic are here to stay, says executive
For mortgage professionals, one of the most striking advancements of the past 18 months has been the widespread embracement of technology and digital solutions throughout the industry.
While a resumption of office work and a return to in-person meetings have become possible in recent weeks, many of the technological advancements that took root in the industry during the pandemic will be here to stay – with an increasing digital focus set to emerge as mortgage brokers look to the future.
Tristan Kirk (pictured), chief executive officer of Citadel Mortgages, told Canadian Mortgage Professional that his company’s main pandemic-era tech investment – an online environment that allowed brokers, agents and executives to interact digitally – had proven a huge success, and would remain a centrepiece of its model moving forward.
“It’s a pretty cool virtual environment and it’s done wonders for our business,” he said. “Our agents are in there, and our leadership’s in there every day. We’re doing live phone calls with clients; we’re working one-on-one with clients in the boardroom and the office, and they’re able to interact with each other and work side by side.
“It was a sizeable investment for us, something that we brought in just before the pandemic – but when the pandemic hit, we never looked back. We still believe it was the best investment we could have made.”
The importance of technology and digital connectivity is particularly clear for a company like Citadel, which is licensed in virtually every one of Canada’s provinces and territories bar Quebec, Manitoba and the Northwest Territories.
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Kirk said that the company’s online platform – which, in addition to featuring six boardrooms and 34 offices, allows members to have their avatar participate in activities such as boating, racing and soccer – had proven an excellent way to connect its mortgage professionals located across the country.
“We’re across Canada, so it’s hard to [connect] people from, say, Alberta and Toronto,” he said. “That’s just difficult. With this technology, it doesn’t matter where they are in Canada – they just log in and can work side by side with someone in a different province.
“It’s just a great team builder and even when things open up, because we’re spread across the country, this is still going to be a huge piece of our business.”
Having worked alongside Citadel since June 2020, fintech Marble Financial recently announced that its API connectivity would be tied directly into Citadel’s onboarding process for clients – a move that Kirk said would herald another significant advancement in the brokerage’s tech offerings.
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That will allow its clients to conduct a financial health review through educational platform products, utilizing bank statements to analyze GDS/TDS and debt ratios.
“It’s all about building that financial journey for the client,” Kirk said. “Technology is huge. It’s an exciting journey, because the platform is really powerful and it’s going to help more Canadians understand their financial information.”
With Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s recent announcement of a federal election to take place on September 20, much discussion in the industry has also focused on the housing and mortgage market topics that are likely to emerge as talking points throughout what’s sure to be a frenzied campaign.
Kirk expressed his hope that the stress test – which has seen a hike in recent months – would be reduced or eliminated in some way, while also saying that much-discussed housing problems in the country needed to be addressed.
“I’d love to see the government have a plan in place to help more Canadians own a home,” he said. “The people that we deal with all day, every day need help.
“It’d be nice to see a government execute it – not just say that they’re going to do something, but actually do it.”
