DaaS: How the Mortgage Industry Will Handle Data Now And In The Future

Most people and firms in the mortgage industry are very familiar with Software as a Service (SaaS). It’s a method of delivering software that can be accessed with an internet connection and a web browser. Over the past 20 years, this web-based model has been adopted almost universally. In the SaaS model the software vendor hosts and maintains the application’s code, servers and databases. SaaS “lives in the cloud” and houses the majority of functions a lender or servicer uses from their point-of-sale (POS) and loan origination system (LOS) to their onboarding applications and default management activities. It eliminated the need for desktop-driven applications and provided an efficient method of rolling up distributed data collected across networks in real time.

Data as a Service (DaaS) is a variation of the (SaaS) model. It is a method of providing data access and data management using the cloud to deliver data storage, processing and analytics through a network connection. DaaS delivers data that can be provided to a user on demand, regardless of geographic location. In the broadest sense, it means enabling customers to engage with data in the manner or procedure that helps them meet their business needs – not just presenting data through a product or report. DaaS provides for transmission of massive amounts of data, which today are being delivered through file transfer protocol (FTP), application programming interface (API), bulk data transfers, etc. The big difference? A truly comprehensive DaaS solution can provide a wide array of on-demand data content, which is configurable and customizable.

The latest evolution of DaaS solutions can move massive amounts of data onto cloud platforms, like the Snowflake Data Marketplace enabling clients to access this data and work with it there, on their specific terms. DaaS solutions are creating opportunities for clients to not only take advantage of the power of content in the cloud, but also to use these platforms to further expedite innovation with the data assets they can access.

The benefits of DaaS are numerous. It enables the provider to tailor the data and solution to meet specific client requirements and deliver the exact information in the manner it needs to be consumed. For example, a lender could use DaaS to make a decision on a single property or transaction in a lender’s system, or to access data on more than 148 million residential properties—a nation’s worth of data – for business intelligence, marketing, competitive tracking, new analytics development and more. And, if an end data user needs to identify specific data attributes associated with a loan or property, etc., deploying a modern API framework can empower these processes to quickly and succinctly acquire that data and populate an internal system of record.

Cloud delivery through DaaS reduces the effort, time and costs of acquiring and managing large data sets. And most importantly, end users can always have the latest, most up-to-date data at their disposal in a secure, near real-time environment.. By ingesting third-party data in the cloud, it can quickly and easily be combined with the end user’s own data enabling faster innovation and value recognition.

DaaS providers have also developed modern collaborative workspaces that can enable a whole litany of programmatic analytics language, business intelligence software and machine learning programs – all plugged in and efficiently accessed.

This is one of the reasons that so many fintech and proptech companies are increasingly sourcing, aggregating, enriching and consuming their data on leading-edge, cloud-based platforms. They are consuming the data and running large-scale analytics within the platforms to solve high-value challenges and to enrich their own data to feed analytics, used by modelers, to quickly deploy data “sandboxes” or cloud worksheets for new concept development and testing.

Most new start-ups, and an increasing number of mature data companies, wouldn’t think of sourcing their data any other way. Whether through cloud delivery or an API, they’re getting the data they need when, where and how they need it.

Near term, DaaS will most likely be an alternative means of accessing data for most mortgage and real estate clients. Most of the processes currently in place will work in the present environment of traditional data reports and FTP transfers, but, in the not-so-distant future, this will change, much the same way SaaS changed lenders data collection at the POS and in processing applications within their LOS.

Leading data providers are already quickly heading to the cloud because of the efficiency, customization capabilities and overall flexibilities DaaS can provide. Over the next five years, DaaS will, more likely, be the primary way most users will consume data just as SaaS replaced desktop applications. DaaS will be the norm sooner rather than later.

Recently, First American Data & Analytics announced that we’ve joined the Snowflake Data Marketplace and have made a number of our large real estate and mortgage data sets available through the cloud, providing curated and linked datasets in cloud platforms with modern workspaces and meaningful analytics input.

The data packages available on Snowflake aid users in quickly turning data into insights with real property information, including property tax information, robust deed and mortgage history, homeowner’s association (HOA) information, automated valuations and geographic trended data, provided in linked data assets. Through data enrichment services on Snowflake Data Marketplace, users also have the ability to co-mingle their own information with First American assets, fueling advanced insights and competitive advantages for their businesses.

Click to learn more about First American Data & Analytics DaaS offerings and the Snowflake Data Marketplace.