5 things Fannie Mae's chief information officer shared about its plans
October 18, 2022 7:34 AM
Most recently, Fannie included on-time rental payments in its underwriting. Soon after, Freddie Mac and the Federal Housing Administration followed suit. Additionally, both Fannie and Freddie permanently allowed remote desktop appraisals, creating the impetus for other housing agencies to jump on the bandwagon.
National Mortgage News sat down with Ramon Richards, chief information officer at Fannie Mae, to find out about what is in store for the government sponsored enterprise next year, what keeps him up at night, and how Fannie is managing third-party risk.
Editor's note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Fannie Mae is prioritizing the migration of its systems to the cloud
"What I'll highlight... is introducing cloud infrastructure, which has allowed us to have more resilient solutions. It's allowed us to deliver capabilities faster and given us more flexibility. When I think about our speed of delivery, we've invested a lot in automating the checks that go into place and ensuring that software is of high quality. That's allowed us to be more agile, as a delivery group than we have been before....Now, with all that being said, why does it matter? These technologies are enabling the business. It allows us to deliver capabilities faster. It allows us to react to important needs from the business and bring solutions to bear faster. Our quality is better.
"We've had some assets on the cloud for years. A few years ago, it became really clear to us that we wanted to take full advantage of what the cloud could do for us."
"We've had some assets on the cloud for years. A few years ago, it became really clear to us that we wanted to take full advantage of what the cloud could do for us."
2023 tech road map includes retiring old legacy systems
"An important focus for us next year is we've created some really important capabilities and talked about some ground automation that's in place for our continuous integration and continuous deployment pipeline to ensure our software meets all of our quality expectations.
"I've talked about the cloud and the work that's in progress. A big part of next year is changing to adopt those across the enterprise. We're focused on retiring our legacy assets. We don't want to be in a place where we've done a lot of new cool things, but we have this technical debt, this legacy in place. So we're very deliberate about retiring our legacy and we'll continue to focus heavily on staying current with how cybersecurity is evolving."
"I've talked about the cloud and the work that's in progress. A big part of next year is changing to adopt those across the enterprise. We're focused on retiring our legacy assets. We don't want to be in a place where we've done a lot of new cool things, but we have this technical debt, this legacy in place. So we're very deliberate about retiring our legacy and we'll continue to focus heavily on staying current with how cybersecurity is evolving."
Tech talent is hard to find and even harder to retain
"I focus a lot on talent. Because in order for us to deliver the technology capabilities that will ultimately enable our business to deliver on our mission and deliver on our business objectives, we need really talented people to do that, and the talented people we need are in really high demand.
"We have invested a lot of time listening to our employees, but also making sure that we are delivering the type of solutions that meet their needs, so that we can retain talent, but also we attract new talent. Cyber is really important, and migrating our assets to the cloud and supporting our mission and so forth, but it starts with you having the right people in order to execute on those things."
"We have invested a lot of time listening to our employees, but also making sure that we are delivering the type of solutions that meet their needs, so that we can retain talent, but also we attract new talent. Cyber is really important, and migrating our assets to the cloud and supporting our mission and so forth, but it starts with you having the right people in order to execute on those things."
Cybersecurity updates are crucial with third-party vendors handling back office functions
"We work closely with internal business on creating the right products that make sense for our lenders, servicers, as well as our engagement with investors. The important outcome for us is the increase of access to housing for borrowers and renters. There are [also] other external parties that have a role to play in order for those outcomes to be achieved. We look to optimize the technology we bring to the table with those external partners.
"When we kind of look at some of our back office functions, general ledger, accounts receivable, accounts payable — these are functions that we couldn't make the investment to build our own solution, but there are some really good third party products out there.
"An important part of our evaluation process for bringing a third party on board is that the third party meets our expectations when it comes to something like cybersecurity. One of the things that I think all industries are reacting to is the pace in which a space like cybersecurity is evolving.
"What you define as safe [yesterday] may not be what we define as safe today. Log4j was a big item of security vulnerability that came out last December, which required a lot of companies to have to react and make some adjustments, including us. Not only were there things that we had to address, but we were very active in our engagement with our third parties as well."
"When we kind of look at some of our back office functions, general ledger, accounts receivable, accounts payable — these are functions that we couldn't make the investment to build our own solution, but there are some really good third party products out there.
"An important part of our evaluation process for bringing a third party on board is that the third party meets our expectations when it comes to something like cybersecurity. One of the things that I think all industries are reacting to is the pace in which a space like cybersecurity is evolving.
"What you define as safe [yesterday] may not be what we define as safe today. Log4j was a big item of security vulnerability that came out last December, which required a lot of companies to have to react and make some adjustments, including us. Not only were there things that we had to address, but we were very active in our engagement with our third parties as well."
The GSE is open to reevaluating processes given how the down market is impacting borrowers and stakeholders
"We pay attention to the cyclical nature of the market… I think when the market is experiencing some challenges in a downturn. These are the times where we look at whether there are things that we should do differently, and whether there are areas where we should bring solutions.
"If we go back to March of 2020 when the pandemic started, this was a time where unemployment jumped to about 14.7%, in April. One of the concerns was, when it came to renters and homeowners, what type of relief would they need? This was kind of a shock to the system. We leveraged some of the investment we've been making in our digital capabilities, to deliver a payment deferral capability that was leveraged to help provide relief to homeowners."
"If we go back to March of 2020 when the pandemic started, this was a time where unemployment jumped to about 14.7%, in April. One of the concerns was, when it came to renters and homeowners, what type of relief would they need? This was kind of a shock to the system. We leveraged some of the investment we've been making in our digital capabilities, to deliver a payment deferral capability that was leveraged to help provide relief to homeowners."
