The push to further digitize the mortgage process gained added traction amid the COVID-19 pandemic, with lockdowns forcing the mortgage industry to adopt new technologies it has otherwise been slow to embrace.
Remote Online Notarizations form part of that digital transformation, naturally. However, the role RON will play in the end-to-end digital mortgage process is somewhat overblown. While the widespread adoption of this technology is moving forward quickly, the widespread use of RON is probably not going to happen anytime soon. Simply put: far too many potential homeowners still wish to have a higher level of participation in the closing process than RON offers.
That’s not to say that having RON available in a time of social distancing hasn’t proved useful, but its impact during the pandemic has been minimal. Right now, if RON is used in even 2% or 3% of all closings, that would be a larger market share than expected. We offer RON as a service and, for 10 months of 2020, WFG used RON on .882% of its closings. Less than 1% of our transactions request RON.
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