Join DocMagic on June 4th for a Compliance Edge™ Webinar!

TRID: Question & Answer Session

We know you have many questions!

This exclusive TRID webinar has been added to our TILA-RESPA Integrated Disclosure Rule Webinar Series to provide as many answers as possible. 

We’ll be joined by our guest presenter, Richard Horn, formerly Senior Counsel and Special adviser to the CFPB's Office of Regulations and one of the key architects of the TRID rule.

Together we will be answering your TRID Rule questions live for a full hour. As a reminder, all registrations will be sent a copy of the webinar recording shortly following the webinar.

Join DocMagic on May 27th for a Compliance Edge™ Webinar!

TRID: Beyond The Basics
This is the second webinar in our TILA-RESPA Integrated Disclosure (TRID) Rule Series.

We are pleased to announce that guest presenter, R. Colgate Selden, Counsel at Alston & Bird LLP in Washington, D.C will be taking the webinar audience Beyond the Basics of the TRID Rule.

Together with DocMagic's Legal and Compliance Department, Mr. Selden will illuminate some of the nuances regarding the Rule and focus on areas of concern for lenders.

Topics we'll cover include:

• The meaning of "Consummation Dates"
• Rounding rules
• Use of addenda to the TRID forms
• Tolerences and cures
• Lenders' increased exposure to liability, and much more!

Mark Your Calendars!

MBA's National Secondary Market Conference & Expo
May 17-20 | New York Marriott Marquis

We’re excited to attend the MBA's National Secondary Market Conference & Expo on May 17. Stop by booth #507 to catch up on the latest Mobile Technology, Integrated Disclosure implementation and new Collaborative Closing Solution. We’re always ready to demonstrate our end-to-end loan document preparation, compliance, and eDelivery solutions for the Mortgage Industry. See you there!
Click here to schedule a meeting.

Our Latest Magic!

• Integrated Disclosures
  Let us show you what we’re doing to prepare for the Integrated Disclosure Rule. Learn about our targeted testing and grab an implementation timeline. 
• Collaborative Closing Solution
  We're bringing lenders and settlement providers together inside our new collaborative closing platform to exchange data prior to closing.
• BorrowerMobile
  A visionary mobile application for tablets & smart phones allows Borrowers to satisfy loan conditions on the go.

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Press Release:
Unrivaled industry eSigning adoption among mortgage clients fuels transaction spike

TORRANCE, Calif., May 11, 2015 -- DocMagic, Inc., the premier provider of fully-compliant loan document preparation, compliance, eSign and eDelivery solutions, announced today that its eSign platforms have now processed more than 100 million mortgage-related eSignature transactions. 

"We are very pleased with the sheer number of eSignatures that we are seeing executed among our client base," said Dominic Iannitti, president and CEO of DocMagic. "This is positive news for the mortgage industry as a whole. In previous years, eSign adoption was much lower among lenders working with borrowers. We have always encouraged clients to take advantage of our eSigning technology; this impressive number of transactions certainly reflects that."

DocMagic is the undisputed leader in the mortgage industry for eSign technologies. The company has a long-standing reputation for developing innovative eSign solutions that integrate seamlessly with mortgage workflows. 

DocMagic has two eSign solutions for clients to take advantage of eSignSystems' SmartSAFE XL eSigning, eDelivery and eVaulting platform was added to the DocMagic family in 2014. DocMagic's eSign platform is a separate SaaS-based solution that features the company's proprietary ClickSign™ technology. SmartSAFE XL is ideal for companies that require more flexibility, extendibility and control over eSigning processes. DocMagic's eSign technology is highly intuitive, simple to setup, and walks signers through the entire document review process to efficiently, expeditiously and compliantly submit eSignatures. 

Notable is that in 2011, in an effort to encourage industry-wide adoption of eSignatures, DocMagic made its eSign technology available to anyone to sign any type of document at no charge. Users can visit DocMagic's website to quickly and easily eSign documents such as contracts, NDAs, proposals and more. 

Documents executed using DocMagic's eSign technology are as legally effective, valid and enforceable as documents printed and signed in ink.

About DocMagic:
DocMagic, Inc. is a leading provider of fully-compliant loan document preparation, compliance, eSign and eDelivery solutions for the mortgage industry. Founded in 1988 and headquartered in Torrance, Calif., DocMagic, Inc. develops software, mobile apps, processes and web-based systems for the production and delivery of compliant loan document packages. The company's compliance experts and in-house legal staff consistently monitor legal and regulatory changes at both the federal and state levels to ensure accuracy. For more information on DocMagic, visit http://www.docmagic.com/.

Press Release:
Completed software updates now accessible online for users to become familiar with the new changes.

TORRANCE, Calif., May 7, 2015 -- DocMagic, Inc., the premier provider of fully-compliant loan document preparation, compliance, eSign and eDelivery solutions, announced that it has completed all required TILA-RESPA Integrated Disclosure rule (TRID) software development and testing, and the new TRID enhancements have been officially released into DocMagic's production environment.

The new TRID offering is available to all DocMagic clients and all LOS partners for in-depth testing. DocMagic wants each of its clients and partners to become acquainted with the TRID enhancements and functionality that was recently incorporated into its suite of web-based document production systems.

"We are giving our clients and partners the ability to be well-prepared for TRID far in advance of the Aug. 1 deadline," said Dominic Iannitti, president and CEO of DocMagic. "After extensive internal testing, re-testing, and BETA testing by a select group of lenders, we perfected the changes required for TRID compliance and are now ready to open the flood gates. We are confident that our systems are now fully compliant with TRID, and we are excited to have our clients and LOS partners access and get used to the new TRID screens and functionality."

DocMagic provides a step-by-step TRID testing guide to all lenders and its support team has already successfully fielded hundreds of questions since the release last month. The company reports that lender testing with DocMagic has been going as planned and no software issues have been unearthed. 

DocMagic says that it has already started client training sessions on the new loan estimate and closing disclosures, has made available detailed training videos, and is presenting regular educational webinars on TRID.

About DocMagic:
DocMagic, Inc. is a leading provider of fully-compliant loan document preparation, compliance, eSign and eDelivery solutions for the mortgage industry. Founded in 1988 and headquartered in Torrance, Calif., DocMagic, Inc. develops software, mobile apps, processes and web-based systems for the production and delivery of compliant loan document packages. The company's compliance experts and in-house legal staff consistently monitor legal and regulatory changes at both the federal and state levels to ensure accuracy. For more information on DocMagic, visit http://www.docmagic.com/.

It was like coming home. “The first moment Iwalked into this building, I knew it was the right place for our company,” Dominic “Don” Iannitti says.

Iannitti is president and CEO of DocMagic, the largest loan document production company in the U.S., and the building he’s speaking of is an impressive, 25,000-square-foot state-of the art technology center in Torrance, California. Within the mostly curved walls of this modern office space, more than 100 employees dedicate themselves to providing unparalleled service for their clients, some of which are the nation’s top lenders.

Iannitti founded DocMagic back in 1988, and as he explains the open-office concept of the building to us, he can’t help but reminisce over the company’s humble beginnings— three employees (including Iannitti) in a 1,000-square-foot office. The company’s first sales person joined the team as a part-time employee after successfully selling the company its first fax machine, a critical component in those early days of taking orders.

But while the company’s start may have been unassuming, its vision was always clear.

“The core of what I found interesting when forming DocMagic was taking data in and leveraging it to produce documentation that would otherwise take hours to type out,” Iannitti says. “It was amazing to me that we could now leverage a data point across many forms and reduce errors because there wasn’t any re-typing going on. Of course all this grew into much more.”

A source of great pride for Iannitti is the fact that a high percentage of the company’s 100+ employees have been with the company for the long haul. This not only includes his COO Alan Brisbane, who has been with DocMagic since day one, but many of the support staff as well. “

DocMagic as a whole understands the immense value of its most important resource—the people that make this place run,” Iannitti says. “A lot of companies get to the point of where they are patting themselves on the back for their own ingenuity, when the reality is it’s the people that make up the organization that make it happen. We take a lot of steps to make sure our employees are comfortable.”

When you look at the design of DocMagic’s headquarters, the high-esteem employees are held in is obvious. The open-office layout encourages workers to wander away from their desks, often convening together in one of the office’s many lounges. While each employee has their own individual workspace with big, dual monitors on their desk, anyone can grab a notebook computer and log in from another location in the building. It’s a type of collaborative design that’s borrowed from forward-thinking companies like Google, which pride themselves on breaking the mold in office design and employee culture.

Dramatic art, inspired by previous ad campaigns, adorns the walls,chronicling different periods in the company’s exponential growth. In between the art are large, dramatic windows that look out on the scenic greenery of the campus. Not just for gazing at, employees are encouraged to take advantage of all the amenities the building has to offer, including its outdoor space.

“We enforce breaks,” Iannitti confidently proclaims. “You can come and sit at your desk for the next eight hours and never move at another company, but that’s not the way it works here. The company is positioned specifically so that our employees can go outside and relax, walk around, and get anything they may need within one block of the office. We also have an on-site gym. We try to promote good, healthy behavior in the sense that we make sure you’re eating, taking breaks, and going out and walking. There are plenty of areas for play, such as our Ping-Pong table, where we have tournaments.”

It is this dedication to playing hard that Iannitti believes makes his employees dedicated to working hard, too. And at a time when adoption of e-lending solutions is up and TILA-RESPA is on the horizon, this steadfast work ethic is crucial.

For DocMagic, the move to the paperless loan is nothing new, and as an early adopter of e-sign technology, they have made it their mission to promote it not only within the industry but among the general public as well. One way in which they have done this is to open up their e-sign tool for free, for anyone who wants to upload a document and use it.

“You can come to our website today, and within a couple minutes, upload your documents and send them to whoever you need to with your signature included,” Iannitti says. “The whole process is completely automatic and absolutely free of charge. This initiative demonstrates the fact that we are a technology company and want to do everything we possibly can to help our clients and potential clients leverage the technology we create and do a better job extending their service to their clients.”

The company is currently gearing up for the adoption of TILA-RESPA on Aug. 1.

“It’s one thing to prepare from a technical perspective, but we have a lot of training sessions going on because, of course, our support people have to answer every question that will come in,” Iannitti says. “So already everyone is being trained to understand exactly how everything works and how to answer questions correctly. It’s a major undertaking but it’s exciting at the time—these things shake the industry up. For companies like us, we enjoy change, so we thrive in this type of atmosphere.”

In addition to helping clients ensure they are compliant with TILA-RESPA, DocMagic helps their clients adjust to changing MISMO, standards as well.

“Today’s clients needs are much more extensive. All of our integrations are based on the latest, greatest versions of MISMO.” Iannitti says. “Our clients have never dealt with this before, and it is radically different than the previous version, so having the ability to have a professional services arm has been critical to us to be able to help these clients with those types of needs.”

As demonstrated by the needs created by such regulatory changes, one of the greatest areas of growth for the company in recent years has been in the call center. With a magnifying glass on all the changes the industry is experiencing, Iannitti explains that there has been a substantial uptick in questions, calls, concerns, tweets and requests.

“From our call center perspective, we are now putting on a mid- and late-evening shift, so we are almost around-the clock,” he says. “There’s a lot of growth in this area, but that’s what is necessary to give our clients the quality of service that they expect from DocMagic.”

Despite these changes, Iannitti is quick to remind us that, at its core, DocMagic is and always has been a technology company.

“In every aspect of what we do we’ve leveraged technology to such an extent that it’s what allows us to be on the cutting, even arguably, bleeding edge of just about everything we do.”

Executive Corner

It doesn’t take long to realize that Dominic “Don”Iannitti is a man with a vision. Whether he’sleading his team in his role as president and CEO of DocMagic, Inc., or he’s excitedly sharing his plan for the company’s future, it’s hard to ever imagine a time when he didn’t have a clear vision of where he was headed.

This unwavering drive is a trait honed through years of hard work and approaching business the only way he knew how: by getting in the trenches with his team and never flinching from the evolving technology needs of the mortgage industry.

“I was always an entrepreneur. Even at 10 years old I was selling something,” Iannitti recalls with a laugh. “When I was a kid, it was okay to go door to door; you could sell flower seeds, brass social security cards to the elderly … there was no end. I always enjoyed brainstorming and coming up with sales ideas.”

This entrepreneurial spirit resurfaced when Iannitti and close high-school friend Alan Brisbane hatched their first great business idea in college. The idea was light years ahead of its time—a video rental delivery service back in the days when video rental stores were only just popping up in Los Angeles.

Looking back, this early business venture is the perfect example of the skill that has served Iannitti so well in the mortgage technology sector—his ability to recognize a need within an existing industry and fulfill it better than anyone else in the field.

“It was an interesting concept that worked well for us,” Iannitti says. “There were 20 or 30 stores that would work with us, and then we added food—it was kind of a big deal. It was fun. We didn’t make any money but we learned a lot. The entrepreneurial spirit has always shined bright in my persona, there’s no question about that.”

While Iannitti outgrew this business concept, the solid friendship and business partnership between Iannitti and Brisbane is an enduring one. One of DocMagic’s first employees back in 1988, Brisbane is still with the company today, now in the role of COO . Iannitti proudly considers him his right-hand man. “Don and I have known each other for more than 35 years. He has a way of empowering employees that gives DocMagic an edge on our competition. We sit right across from each other and each day still feels like the first day,” Brisbane said.

With his keen sense for business from an early age, it’s not surprising that, upon entering college, Iannitti declared a double major in business and finance. It was during this period that he first encountered the mortgage industry, albeit in an unusual way.

“At one point I had a job in accounting, working at a college in Carson, California, and there was this building across the street that was just really sharp, and I always thought to myself, ‘I want to work in that building. That’s a great looking building.’ Turns out it was a mortgage company.”

Iannitti, spurred by his enthusiasm for his business classes, put plans into place for DocMagic before graduation day even rolled around.

“You can never over-emphasize the importance of planning,” Iannitti advises. “I worked on my business plan for many, many months. It’s funny because I used that plan to go out and grab capital, which served us that first year of the operation. At the end of the year, my bottom line was within $6,000 off what my plan said it would be. Which is unheard of. Business plans are never right when it comes to that stuff.”

Today, Iannitti has his own dream office—a multimillion dollar facility that, thanks to its unique, modern design, has won accolades from the American Institute of Architects. In classic Iannitti style however, he is not done dreaming.

“We know what we want to accomplish in the next 10 years,” Iannitti said coyly, alluding to the next steps for DocMagic. “It’s our entrepreneurial spirit that makes this possible.”

As featured by TheMReport, April 2015

By Melanie Feliciano and Tim Anderson

What does the recently launched CFPB e-closing pilot really say thus far, and what may it reveal?

Any mortgage professional can attest to the overwhelming amount of paperwork associated with the closing process. For consumers, this final step to homeownership has become notorious for causing confusion and even surprises in the form of unexpected costs. In an effort to assess how the industry can reduce the complexity of this arduous process, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) introduced its mortgage eClosing pilot, with seven financial institutions and four technology vendors participating in this program. While the closing is just one portion of the mortgage, this pilot could be key to proving the value electronic records, e-signatures, electronic workflows and even electronic notarizations can have, bringing to light trends that are critical to the mortgage lending world as a whole.

The eClosing pilot went live at the beginning of the year, and is exploring how the use of technology during the closing process can reduce frustration for consumers, improve their understanding and, at the same time, help lenders uphold compliance. Stemming from the CFPB’s Know Before You Owe initiative, it is largely expected among industry professionals for this pilot to, in fact, demonstrate that electronic processes accomplishes these goals.

In addition to the value of modern technology, the eClosing pilot is demonstrating the importance of accurate data. To this point, the primary focus for lenders has been on completing and delivering disclosure forms three days prior to the closing; however, if the data is not accurate, costly and frustrating delays remain inevitable. In the worst cases, legal repercussions may occur as a result of inaccurate data on closing forms, which is often simply the result of human error. Electronic processes and the use of automated documents significantly reduce these types of errors – not to mention, enable lenders to complete forms more quickly. Accuracy of data is intended to mitigate risk for lenders and to eliminate any surprises at the closing.

Electronic documents are much more than PDFs emailed back and forth, but rather intelligent documents that further protect lenders by facilitating clear timestamps to show who did what, and when they did it. What makes these documents “intelligent” is that the source XML data that is used to generate the document can be embedded within the document. This is important as it can be used later to be re-verified for compliance or electronically boarded to other systems eliminating the need to scan them, and have Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to extract data or re-key information. Having this type of automation enables lenders to reconcile that data between initial disclosure and final closing disclosure, making sure that the Good Faith Estimate (GFE), Truth in Lending (TIL) and APR are within the tolerance thresholds. Electronically performing this process is imperative for lenders; without accurate data, the chance that the closing cost will match the initial GFE is much less, causing delays in closing, incur fees and experience many other penalties.

Many documents require signatures from multiple parties, which means they are passed through a number of hands, making it easy for a mistake to occur. Automation and electronic workflows prevent common human errors like losing pages or missing a signature, and also provide lenders more visibility – they can simply log into a system to see status updates of all activities for every transaction, bringing more accountability to their businesses. Automated documents mean an automated paper trail, which is critical to lenders to prove they followed compliance.

A primary objective for the CFPB with the eClosing pilot is to evaluate ways to promote better consumer understanding of the mortgage process and the countless documents involved. Even for the savviest borrower – receiving a stack of paper documents with the expectation to review and comprehend its contents is a tall order. In addition to electronic processes in general, the pilot is experimenting with new methods to help borrowers gain a stronger understanding before they reach the final closing. For instance, can interactive links throughout the electronic forms offer guidance and education? Would borrowers be receptive to summaries, term definitions and process explanations within electronic documents? How about correlating videos?

Evaluating these tech-focused options is how the CFPB is aiming to protect consumers and create a smoother process for the consumer and lender alike. In addition to contributing to enhancing borrower comprehension, electronic documents make it possible for consumers to receive documents from the lender faster, and therefore, have more time to review them earlier than they otherwise could if being mailed the paperwork. This could mean that by the time the closing rolls around, consumers could have already read and even signed up to 85 percent of the documents – and better understand what they are signing, rather than feeling rushed to sign documents they do not fully comprehend at the closing table.

It is widely acknowledged that fraud is a growing problem for the entire financial services industry. The mortgage lending process is particularly at risk, as documents carry copious amounts of consumers’ sensitive financial data. An electronic closing process will help to make transactions more efficient, while simultaneously making them more secure and mitigating a number of risks, from repudiation risk to other types of fraud. Paper documents can easily be misplaced and wet signatures are much easier than electronic signatures to forge. Automated technology hinders fraudsters’ ability to tamper with documents, as well as requires levels of authentication for users that simply are not possible to enforce with paper.

As financial institutions continue to deal with lawsuits – some up to a billion dollars – from the robosigning that occurred, the need for more standardized and automated processes is underlined. Compliance requirements combined with the adoption of electronic processes – complete with time and date stamps and audit trails – will prevent unauthorized individuals from illegally executing or notarizing closing forms. Furthermore, a full, electronic process that captures proper authentication of the borrower executing the closing forms will help to document compliance with mortgage lending laws while mitigating risk during the mortgage origination process.

Although the closing is just one part of the mortgage process, the results from this pilot program will potentially demonstrate how electronic processes can benefit the entire mortgage transaction. There are hopes that the outcomes of this pilot could propel us toward fully electronic mortgage processes in the near future. The technology is there. The need is there. As is the desire from both sides – industry professionals and consumers. With the amount of time all mortgage companies have invested in updating their processes, policies and technology to accommodate the changing landscape, the establishment of a true e-mortgage, used across the board, would certainly prove a win-win for everyone.

About the authors

Tim Anderson is Director of eServices, DocMagic. He brings over 30 years of industry experience havingworked on both the lender and vendor side of the business. He has held executive management positions withLPS, Stewart, Fidelity, FreddieMac and HomeSide Lending where he ran the eCommerce Division and worked attechnology companies like Dexma, Microsoft and Tuttle Information Services.

Melanie Feliciano is a 2014 voluntary board member for the Electronic Signature and Records Association(ESRA), the premier trade association representing electronic signature adopters and providers. She ischief legal officer for Carson, Calif.-based DocMagic, Inc., a provider of solutions for the national mortgageindustry’s most pressing document production needs. In her role as chief legal officer, she manages theLegal and Compliance Department.

As featured by Progress In Lending, April 2015

Press Release:
New solution brings lenders and settlement providers together inside a secure collaborative portal to view and exchange fee data prior to closing

TORRANCE, Calif., April 23, 2015 -- DocMagic, Inc., the premier provider of fully-compliant loan document preparation, compliance, eSign and eDelivery solutions, announced that it will launch a Collaborative Closing Platform for the mortgage industry. The solution is comprised of a secure, seamless and dynamic web-based portal that efficiently and expeditiously helps lenders comply with the TILA-RESPA Integrated Disclosure (TRID) rule that becomes effective on August 1.

DocMagic's Collaborative Closing Platform enables streamlined, real-time exchange of information between lenders, settlement agents and their associates via a secure web portal designed to electronically access, edit, validate and approve both data and documents. As a result, the coordination of all closing costs and audits of critical disclosure details are addressed prior to closing and in full compliance with TRID.

"Our Collaborative Closing Platform brings all of the necessary closing components and parties together to effectively assist lenders in complying with TRID in a very efficient, timely fashion," said Dominic Iannitti, president and CEO of DocMagic. "With one simple click, lenders can invite their settlement providers to view and update disclosure data, which is automatically analyzed by DocMagic's comprehensive Audit Engine in preparation for final approval by the lender."

The solution utilizes version 3.3 of the new MISMO standard that is needed for TRID to bi-directionally and securely pass data between parties. DocMagic's Audit Engine automatically tracks RESPA tolerance levels, changes in fees and related approvals to ensure compliance with applicable regulations. Each step in the process is tracked and stored within the secure environment.

Approved parties that are involved in the process can view a full electronic audit trail history of compliance, workflow and document management, which is securely captured and housed in a centralized area for easy access and reporting. Inside the secure platform parties with appropriate permissions can access shared documents, enter and adjust data, view the closing disclosure in real-time as it is modified, and communicate via an integrated chat system.

DocMagic's Closing Collaboration Platform leverages its eSign technology to deliver and facilitate the electronic signing of the closing disclosure and related documentation. The solution also provides a bridge that can seamlessly integrate with title, closing and lender LOS systems. The company says that in addition to lenders and settlement providers being able to utilize the platform, other relevant technology vendors can also take advantage of the solution to review and share data and documents.

About DocMagic:
DocMagic, Inc. is a leading provider of fully-compliant loan document preparation, compliance, eSign and eDelivery solutions for the mortgage industry. Founded in 1988 and headquartered in Torrance, Calif., DocMagic, Inc. develops software, mobile apps, processes and web-based systems for the production and delivery of compliant loan document packages. The company's compliance experts and in-house legal staff consistently monitor legal and regulatory changes at both the federal and state levels to ensure accuracy. For more information on DocMagic, visit http://www.docmagic.com/.

Our Collaborative Closing Solution is a seamless 2-Way data exchange between lenders and settlement providers!

DocMagic brings lenders, settlement providers and associates together inside our new Collaborative Closing Platform to view and exchange data, coordinate closing costs and audit critical disclosure details prior to closing. DocMagic’s Collaborative Closing Platform is a secure, seamless and dynamic web-based solution designed to efficiently help you meet TILA-RESPA Integrated Disclosure requirements.

An electronic, workflow-driven system automates the collaboration between lenders and their settlement providers:

• Lenders & settlement providers work in sync inside our Collaborative Closing Platform
• Electronic access to edit, validate and approve MISMO 3.3 compliant, content-enabled XML disclosure documents
• Settlement provider changes automatically sync with TRID forms upon lender approval
• Automatically track TRID tolerance audits, fee increases and their related approvals
• Electronically deliver, sign, manage, and store documents via DocMagic’s eSign technology
• Complete electronic audit trail to document compliance with TRID’s timing requirements and other significant events
• Seamless integration with title, closing, and LOS systems

CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE

By Phil Hall

On the company Web site, DocMagic bills itself as “The largest loan document production company in the U.S.” And while that is a grand definition, it doesn’t capture the intelligence, innovation and celebrated customer service level that has earned the company the respect of the industry.

National Mortgage Professional Magazine spoke with Don Iannitti, the company’s founder, president and chief executive officer, to discuss how DocMagic emerged to become a leader in its field.

What was the inspiration behind starting DocMagic?
Don Iannitti: When I was in college back in 1987, I was reading a book that focused on emerging technologies. There was one chapter that focused on the “repackaging of data.” After I read about it, I wasn’t sure of applications relating to that—I wondered who in the world would want to buy repackaged data.

At the time, I had a part-time job that did speed typing of other types of documents. I then realized that we were doing what was in the book. So, I brainstormed and came up with a concept related to this. Also at this time, I found someone who was looking to get into a different type of business—a mortgage banker looking to customize appraisals. I floated my idea on how he could automate that concept.

Customized appraisals? Did that business take off?
No, and I am happy that it did not happen.

So what happened next?
I went to work on another business plan. I micro-analyzed every number, every night, and put threeto four months into it. That mortgage banker was Patrick Theodora of American City Mortgage. He and his father, Pasquale Theodora, decided to
fund me.

How close did your business plan coincide with the actual business?
In our first year of business, our bottom line was within $6,000. In our second year of business, our bottom line was within $10,000. So, it was close to what I planned.

When the company began operations in 1988, what was the state of loan document production?
It was all over the map. A lot of typing was going on, and lenders had between 25 and 50 percent of the burden of doing those tasks themselves. You had typewriters, and the best ones were just adding computer interfaces to those machines. Word processing was not very common at that time. When we opened our doors, a company came by and gave us a word processor to see if we liked it. But there were no laser printers yet, just dot matrix printers at that stage. Oh, the dot matrix printers–they sounded like machine gun fire! But this was before the Internet, yes? There was no Internet, no modems. It was an interesting time.

So what were the important milestones in growing your company?
First was the introduction of the laser printer. Before that, we had between 5,000 and 7,000 documents that were photocopied. And every time we needed a new batch, we had to walk over to the photocopier and make another 500 to 700.

Next was the introduction of the modem. That was critical. The first use of the modem was in calling and talking to a remote laser printer, in order to make it print across the phone line. Needless to say, that was not the most efficient use of technology.

Our first version of DocMagic had a computer talking to a computer. When that happened, all of the issues involving a laser printer going offline or running out of paper went away.

Increasing the speed in modems was also helpful. But when the Internet came along, our racks of modems were replaced. Also, increasing the speed of the computers was important. In our beginning stages, we’d make the computers. When we first got into the markets, companies had to use mini-frame or mainframes. We had PCs, but with each new machine running at faster speed, we’d always be at the point of being maxed out. We were always riding the tech wave–as soon as any computer came out that made work faster, we were on it.

What have been DocMagic’s greatest challenges, and how did the company face these challenges?
Our greatest challenge was in maintaining employees. This was crucial because when clients call us, we didn’t want to have them deal with an employee turnover. One thing we did was to make sure that our employees knew how important they were, and to make sure they feel like they are part of the family. We have employee events and company picnics. Now we’re at over 100 people, and many people have been with our company for 25 years.

What do you look for when recruiting new people to be part of your team?
We are looking for a certain spark and a certain sense of humor. We prefer an extroverted applicant, someone who can carry on a conversation. We ask applicants a lot of questions and drill into their past jobs, asking about their work experience. We are looking at their history of job longevity–someone who had jobs for one or two years will never work. We want to make sure that we have the right people. This job involves a lot of compliance issues, and we want to make sure that anyone we hire is well-educated.

That leads to the next question … how have the regulatory changes of the past several years impacted the manner in which DocMagic operates?
This is a big part of what we do. The regulatory changes directly impacted the growth of our automated auditing engine. And sometimes, regulatory changes do not directly impact new documents. Oftentimes, it involves timing changes or different types of notifications. Our compliance audit engine makes our clients aware of something that they may potentially face.

With regulations, there is always something happening. We have a team that monitors changes on a state level–there is never a dull moment. Compliance is a living, breathing thing—it never gets easier, and it always becomes exponentially more complex.

The changes that we are seeing now dwarf what we’ve seen in the past. But this is where we shine, and that brings value to our clients because that is something they do not have to worry about.

How has DocMagic approached cybersecurity?
We’re constantly monitoring that sort of thing. We have lots of new insurance policies that we need to maintain. And this despite the fact that we are somewhat under the radar; we’re not like Amazon or Google, where people want to attack us all of the time.

We have a number of services whose job is to try to hack into us and find our vulnerabilities. It is an amazing process to see what they’ve found, and it requires us to plug or solve whatever vulnerabilities exist.

We also deal with the nation’s top five lenders, and they have their own requirements on vendor cybersecurity as well.

What does the future hold for DocMagic?
A lot of our efforts are focused on esigning and e-closing. We are in two pilot tests on that with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

We are also expanding our esigning product into other industries. Right now, we are working with the insurance industry.

As for the company, we are definitely expanding. We have a vision of where we would like to be in the next decade. We are also keeping open lines of communications with our closest competitors—should they want to leave the market, we can look at their operations.

As featured by National Mortgage Professional, April 2015