New Loan Opportunities Uncovered: Ice’s Innovative Approach To Integrated Borrower Engagement

ICE is rewriting the playbook on how lenders engage with customers across the homeownership journey. Matt Dowd, VP of Product Management at ICE, shares the company’s strategy to unify its origination and servicing solutions, allowing lenders to more easily identify, engage and convert opportunities within their existing portfolios to drive business growth. This integrated approach creates a consistent borrower experience and allows lenders to maximize every interaction, from initial acquisition to long-term retention.

HousingWire: Matt, we’ve spoken a few times recently about the work you’re doing in the customer acquisition space, and how ICE is helping lenders uncover new loan opportunities in today’s competitive market. Now that you’re leading servicing product management, can you share more about your new role and your initial focus — particularly how you’re helping lenders identify, engage and convert opportunities within their servicing portfolios?

Matt Dowd: It’s a privilege to be working with such an experienced team on the servicing side of ICE’s business. Over the years, the team has built a best-in-class platform for mortgage servicers. I feel fortunate to be surrounded by so many talented professionals – all of whom are committed to maintaining and continuing to innovate the technology that’s been foundational to mortgage servicing for decades. 

In this role, I am focused on not only expanding the capabilities of our current servicing platform, but also tightly unifying our servicing solutions with our origination and loan acquisition capabilities so our clients — regardless of the channel — can maximize every opportunity across the customer life cycle. 

When we last connected, I talked about our approach to retention and acquisition. We have expanded our capabilities to provide a multi-channel toolset that loan officers can use to help identify, attract and convert new loan opportunities into closed loans. We’ve been laser-focused in this area for quite some time now — helping clients leverage both property and market data with technology to acquire NEW customers. Now we’re expanding our efforts to help lenders RETAIN customers and nurture those relationships using their servicing portfolio data. 

When considering the approach we took for origination, the same tenets hold for servicing. Lenders often view borrowers differently depending on where they are in the loan journey. At the end of the day, a borrower is still a person — and we shouldn’t lose sight of that. The goal is to create a meaningful experience that not only supports them but also builds lasting trust and encourages referrals. That starts with delivering relevant, timely and engaging information — demonstrating that you’re on their side, you understand their needs and you’re committed to acting in their best interest.

HW: I saw ICE’s press release about the integration of Servicing Digital with your Encompass point-of-sale platform, allowing borrowers to apply for a home equity loan directly from their mobile device using pre-populated loan data. That seems like an example of how you’re supporting lenders with their recapture efforts. Can you tell us more about that?

MD: That’s a great example of the integration that we’re talking about. As I mentioned earlier, it’s well known that home equity lending continues to be a growth opportunity for lenders, specifically for those who retain servicing.    

Homeowners today are sitting on record levels of equity, presenting a significant opportunity for lenders to expand their home equity portfolios. According to ICE’s borrower insight survey conducted earlier this year, nearly 25% of respondents are considering a home equity loan or HELOC within the next 12 months. Capitalizing on this trend requires strong borrower engagement — driven by timely, relevant and personalized communication that builds trust and drives action.

ICE’s research also shows that borrowers are significantly more likely to work with lenders who proactively engage and maintain ongoing communication. In fact, two-thirds of borrowers say they’re highly likely to return to their most recent lender for their next mortgage. If you’re not staying connected, you risk losing those opportunities to competitors who are actively targeting your customers. To retain and grow these relationships, lenders must leverage servicing portfolio data to build targeted campaigns that feel authentic, thoughtful, personalized and aligned with their current needs. 

Here’s why the integration between our point of sale and our servicing digital capabilities is so important. We want to meet the borrower where they are. Over 18 million borrowers today use the ICE Servicing Digital app to manage their loan payments. So, it’s logical that when they are looking to conduct another transaction, they do so from the place they already are today. Why send them to another site or have them download another mobile app to apply?  

Not only do we provide the ability for the borrower to complete the application within Servicing Digital, but many of the fields within the form will be pre-populated with the borrower’s data, reducing the effort required by the borrower. Furthermore, once the application is submitted, the borrower can upload and review the necessary documents into the Servicing Digital portal. Automated email, push notifications and alerts are all part of the offering, so the homeowner is aware of when they need to act.  

While this is delivering significant value to lenders who retain servicing, we are also actively helping our origination clients who sell their MSRs. As an example, our marketing automation capabilities, available through our customer acquisition and retention platforms, help lenders create “borrowers for life.” We do so by helping lenders automate outreach or stay in touch with those borrowers even after post-close through a variety of communication channels. This multi-channel approach might include email, phone, text or direct mail or ideally, a combination of all of them — all designed to deepen customer connection, even when the lender doesn’t manage the monthly servicing payments. 

As consumers, we all recognize what makes a customer experience truly valuable — regardless of the industry. At ICE, we’re committed to providing tools that lenders can use to deliver a consistent, thoughtful and seamless engagement with any borrower at any time.

HW: There are many technology providers in the market today claiming to help lenders with borrower recapture. How does ICE differentiate itself in such a competitive landscape?

MD: I empathize with the challenge lenders face. They receive messages from a lot of different tech providers all claiming that they can help with recapture. I’m sure in most cases, they can. But let me talk about a few key ways  in which ICE stands out. 

First, we’re an independent technology provider. That means our solutions are designed to support lenders of all sizes, regardless of their existing tech stack or their portfolio size. 

Second, we position ourselves as a true partner across multiple aspects of their business. Our goal is to help lenders holistically operate more efficiently without requiring a large internal technology team or an army of developers. We provide both technical infrastructure and operational support to help keep their technology costs down. 

Third, we emphasize data consistency. When a lender enters loan data into one system, it should flow effortlessly across the entire loan lifecycle, triggering the right actions at the right time. In environments with multiple technology vendors, maintaining data integrity requires significant investment in syncing disparate systems. Our clients don’t need to worry about data accuracy, API integrations, or software release compatibility. We make sure data moves reliably and consistently from one system to another — eliminating any friction from the process.

Fourth, we prioritize configuration and scalability to help our clients deliver a personalized borrower experience. With flexible configuration options, lenders can tailor borrower-facing solutions to meet evolving customer expectations. Our platform allows customization of the experience — from flow and design to look and feel — ensuring that every interaction aligns with the lender’s brand and the borrower’s needs.

HW: So would you say this integration of origination and servicing technologies represents the broader vision behind ICE’s technology strategy — creating a truly seamless experience for lenders and borrowers alike?

MD: It’s more than just connecting borrowers and lenders — we’re building a fully integrated network that brings together all entities involved in the loan process. While the borrower and lender remain central, our strategy extends to agencies, investors, notaries, service providers, and beyond.

Recently, we’ve focused heavily on foundational work to support the deep connectivity between our origination and servicing platforms. One key use case is allowing loans to seamlessly transition from the Encompass origination system to the MSP servicing system. This integration is critical to our product strategy, which aims to create the most efficient network — giving lenders the ability to better manage volumes at scale and cost-effectively.

In addition, we’ve streamlined several back-office processes, like loan boarding and lien release, and of course the work we talked about earlier to help retain customers and capture new ones. Our ongoing focus is to bridge the gap between origination and servicing and unifying these two industry-leading platforms to deliver a more cohesive and efficient experience.

HW: You mentioned ICE is focused on building “the most efficient platform” for lenders and servicers. How does ICE’s investment capacity translate into real benefits for your clients?

MD: That’s a big question — and there are many ways our clients benefit from the scale and depth of our investment. One example is how we’re transforming borrower recapture and acquisition.

Traditionally, lenders have relied on multiple point solutions, legacy systems and disconnected tools to re-engage past customers. These fragmented approaches often make it difficult to execute even basic outreach campaigns effectively.

We’ve seen major industry players pursue large-scale mergers to create seamless, end-to-end borrower experiences — from home search through origination and into servicing. Our investment strategy is designed to help all our clients achieve that same level of integration and scale, without the complexity of stitching together multiple vendors.

Let’s take recapture as a use case:

• Mobile-enabled sales toolkit: Our sales toolkit allows loan officers to manage leads and pipelines efficiently. It’s integrated with the Encompass platform and the borrower point of sale and includes a native CRM to drive connectivity and boost conversion.

• Data and intelligence: We offer the industry’s broadest set of property and market data, valuation models, indices and business intelligence — helping lenders identify trends and act on market opportunities faster.

• Consumer-facing tools: Our servicing digital portal supports over 18 million consumers, giving borrowers direct access to their loan information and self-service capabilities.

• Machine learning at point of sale: We’re exploring ways to embed our current ML capabilities into our point of sale to streamline processes and improve the borrower experience. This includes immediately recognizing and validating any uploaded documents from the borrower and extracting relevant data from Encompass to pre-populate forms for review and correction.  

We anticipate that borrowers will continue to demand more transparency, control and self-service options. The more information you can provide up front — not just regarding their loan, but regarding the steps they can take to accelerate the process — the better their experience.

At ICE, we’re committed to helping all of our clients build and maintain strong customer pipelines. Our unified ecosystem eliminates the need for three, four, or five different vendors to deliver a seamless experience. By consolidating capabilities into a single platform, we help provide greater efficiency, faster execution and long-term scalability.

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