Financial data and analytics company FinLocker has gained the approval of a second patent supporting its digital vault functionality.
FinLocker's "financial locker" is a reusable electronic vault for consumers to manage and store financial data for loan transactions such as mortgages. The platform reduces lender costs, avoids data errors by maintaining accurate information and shrinks processing times, FinLocker said.
The company's first patent protects the control and data access of a consumer's personal financial information, while the newly approved second patent covers multisource information management of data and documentation. This second patent includes capabilities to retrieve, store, update and analyze data housed in digital vaults, including access to rules and transparent consumer controls, according to the company.
"Obtaining approval on this second patent illustrates our innovative prowess in providing a unique lending solution for the capture and analysis of consumer financial data," Peter Esparrago, co-founder and CEO of FinLocker, said in a press release.
FinLocker's digital vault will support data management through a loan's entire life cycle, providing things like greater borrower transparency through an access-controlled portal; one or more platforms to improve communication among and between the borrower, lender and loan servicer; real-time verification of information; and a flexible rules and workflow engine for lenders and underwriters to collaborate.
The platform also offers a calculator to perform ability-to-repay and similar calculations; a tool for certifying bank statements, among other historical financial information; and reporting and monitoring features to detect emerging defaults and other warning signs.
In its most recent patent, FinLocker described the loan process as inefficient and complex, and identified a number of cumbersome processes the company plans to tackle through its platform: the collection of information from disparate sources, the verification of documents, the possession of things like bank transcripts and asset information and the error-prone manual retrieval of data by human hands.
