Monday Morning Cup of Coffee takes a look at news across the HousingWire news desk, with more coverage to come on larger issues.
Emerging tech is going to disrupt the mortgage market for years to come. Whether its blockchain or bitcoin, just about everywhere you look there are predictions that show change will be coming fast.
One popular narrative is the question of whether or not robots will replace those who work in the mortgage finance space. But forget about humanless loan officers for a second and consider this question: what about driverless cars?
The data and analytics team at CB Insights examined the emerging role of driverless cars and the impact on 33 industries. While the changing role of parking garages and the corner gas station will be resulting evolution of driverless cars, will this mean home prices will rise in suburban areas? They suggest so in their article:
Faster and easier commutes will shift residential property value from properties in urban centers to those in suburban areas. In commercial real estate, spaces currently predicated on human drivers will be converted to other uses.
Speaking of automation disrupting industries, digital banking will push Wells Fargo to eliminate more than 20,000 jobs, mainly through attrition.
But one role is apparently safe: The position of Chief Executive Officer. The American Banker is reporting that Tim Sloan plans to sit tight for many, many years.
Credit reporting company Equifax was slapped with a maximum 500,000 pound ($658,000) fine by the United Kingdom’s privacy watchdog for failing to protect the personal information of as many as 15 million British citizens during a cyberattack last year, according to this report by Stephanie Bodoni in Bloomberg.
From the report:
The fine, the maximum that the regulator could levy under old privacy rules, adds to Equifax’s woes. The Atlanta-based company has been subject to probes around the world since disclosing a year ago that a hack had exposed the data in one of the biggest cyberattacks in history. The breach slashed a third off the company’s share price in one week after hackers accessed the sensitive personal information by exploiting a previously identified software vulnerability between May and July 2017.
“The criminal cyberattack against our U.S. parent company last year was a pivotal moment for our company,” Equifax said in an emailed statement. “We apologize again to any consumers who were put at risk.”
Back in June and only one day after announcing that additional regulations would be coming for credit agencies, NYDFS lowered the boom on Equifax in response to its massive 2017 security breach, making the credit reporting agency sign a consent order with eight state banking commissioners in which it promised to undertake risk assessment and receive board oversight on its information security program, audit, information technology operations and vendor management, among other things.
In other, exciting digital news, Cloudvirga Co-founder Kyle Kamrooz has been named a 2018 “Innovator of the Year” by the Orange County Business Journal.
Cloudvirga is a new a company that helps top lenders automate the loan process and empowers borrowers with greater transparency and engagement in the mortgage transaction. Read all about them right here.
Kamrooz has been on the housing radar for some time; he received a 2017 Vanguard award. Congratulations, Kyle!
Have a great week, everyone!
