How SitusAMC is powering warehouse finance opportunities

Fergal McAlinden  00:00:02
Hello again, and thanks for joining us on another edition of MPA TV. And this week, we are back with SitusAMC to talk all things warehouse lending and the cutting edge technology that they offer in that space. So 75% of the warehouse market is supported through the company's promarient and WLS products. And joining me today from SitusAMC to talk through some of the reasons behind that success. We have Anthony Beshara, the company's Managing Director and Head of Warehouse Financing. So Anthony, thanks for being with us today. First of all, how is everything going in your work? 

Anthony Beshara  00:00:32
Everything's going well. Thanks Fergal. Thanks for thanks for setting this up and for having us today. We're really excited to do this. 

Fergal McAlinden  00:00:40
All right. Great stuff, good to hear and really looking forward to the conversation. Today. So plenty going on over the past couple of years with the company, and plenty in store. I'm wondering if there are any kind of trends that you have your eye on at the moment, Anthony, anything in the warehouse landing space that you're working on that you're excited to share for the years ahead?

Anthony Beshara  00:00:58
Yeah, that's a great question. There's, you know, every year that that I've been here, we always are looking to invest in the platform and enhance the platform. It's really important to us from a strategic standpoint. If you look at our market, WLS and ProMerit were the predominant platforms in the marketplace for a long time. The competitive landscape has changed significantly since I've been here, almost the four years I've been here in my role here at SitusAMC, and we've seen, you know, three new competitors, bring competing platforms to market. We continue to maintain a very strong market share in this area. And the reason for that is A. it's our people, the experience, the technology, the way that we engage with clients, adapting to an agile model, you know, we've really done all the things that our bank clients are focused and concerned about we're also from an institutional standpoint we're very mature from a legal and information security client audits team, very well balanced from a financial standpoint. So we are a very strong strategic partner when our bank clients are evaluating different systems. Aside from that, in terms of the platform, we're really excited in terms of improving the look and the feel of ProMerit, so because, you know, competitors can come to market and say, hey, I built this fancy thing, but when customers look at it, does it really have the functionality and the features of a platform that's been around for 25 plus years? It's not the sort of thing that you can build overnight. It's not the sort of thing that you can build, you know, in a couple of months. It takes years and years and years of working with customers, building up functionality, testing that functionality, identifying various use cases and then putting those use cases into work. So in 2024 we really got focused on, you know, once we had the SAS solution, implemented it in place, in 24 we really focused on building out the look and feel, building out what we call, what we refer to as dashboards. And now we're adding to those dashboards, workflow tools for our customers. It's really incredibly it's really transformed the look and feel of primary how our customers, the banks, the warehouse lenders, and their customers, the mortgage originators or funds, etc, who are seeking financing, how they can go in and interact with ProMerit. It's really transformed it like I said, it's taking it to the next level. That's a great user interface for our clients and our team has really invested, you know, a lot of time and effort into, you know, we really kind of identify as sort of a key roadmap development area for us to improve our customers experience. Part of improving their experience is we're creating a tool that's more efficient, right? So, you know, maybe before you had to go into a couple of screens and there were a couple more clicks, or there were some more automations or customization customizations that you had to build in. Now, with the dashboards, it's very slick and the and via the dashboards, you can access various types of API integrations that we have with other vendors that, you know, important to the day to day execution of our warehouse launder clients.

Fergal McAlinden  00:04:52
Anthony, maybe tell me a little bit about SitusAMC, warehouse landing technology and how it became, I mean, such a prominent player in that space. As I mentioned, 75% of all your origination touched by ProMerit and by WLS so how did that come about?

Anthony Beshara  00:05:06
Yeah, well, SitusAMC has been around for almost 30 years. It's been a prominent player in the residential and commercial real estate space. Obviously, a long history in performing due diligence services and other services for clients. And over the last decade or so, the company has really grown and expanded, really kind of, you know, expanded its reach in the technology area and within residential and commercial real estate finance. So just about five years ago or so, SitusAMC completed two acquisitions, one of SRG, which owned the WLS platform, and the second of MBMs, which owns the ProMerit and MB trust platforms. ProMerit is a warehouse lending platform, and MB trust is custodian solution for major custodians in the marketplace. So that is how SitusAMC kind of entered the warehouse lending technology in the second quarter of 22 we launched a warehouse administration service business to complement our technology platforms, and we've been operating that business for, you know, little over two years now, and the services around that complement our warehouse lending technologies.

Fergal McAlinden  00:06:34
All right, so plenty happening at the company, and I understand as well, Anthony, that in the second out of last year you released a cloud, hosted version of ProMerit. Can you tell me a little bit about some of those new features and how they really enhance the processes? 

Anthony Beshara  00:06:48
Yeah. So a key component to the strategy around acquiring the technology platforms was to take those technology from on prem so on premise platforms, so hosted at the site of our client, and evolving those platforms into becoming SAS cloud hosted solutions. So we've been able to do that. We've had clients on the SAS ProMerit and MB trust platforms for over two years now. We host the platforms via AWS, the Amazon services. And it's been, you know, it's been a remarkable transition for this organization to take two platforms essentially to the next level. One of the exciting things that allows us to have a SAS cloud based platform is we've adapted a more of an agile model, and so we work in two weeks sprints every month. What we're able to do is deliver monthly releases to our customers. They can take those releases and get the latest updates functionality features that we've built into primary if there's any bug fixes, just like an application on your phone, we're now able to deliver that via those monthly releases. So it's really transformed our technology and the way that we engage with our customers from a technology perspective, one of the other important things is having consistency around the code. ProMerit is a very customizable solution. You can build in a lot of automation so eliminate a lot of manual processes that are susceptible to human errors. By able to being able to customize and automate is great, but you want to have consistency among the product you don't want to have you know, 50 60 70, clients, using all different versions and different codes and different systems. So really kind of having that consistency, and as I mentioned earlier, it's really important as the product evolves, and it does evolve over time, to have the latest features and functionality. The other thing is, from a service perspective, we're able to deliver our service solution because we now have SAS cloud hosted solutions. So our team, our resources, are in remote locations, but they are actually configuring training and actually providing operational execution services from the remote locations, because they're able to access the client's production environment and execute on their behalf. So it's really, it is really transformed the technology and the way that we provide, you know, services and the way we deliver updates and functionality to our clients.

Fergal McAlinden  00:09:47
Okay and Anthony, what about the warehouse administration site? Tell me about SitusAMC warehouse administration service and how that can be used by banks.

Anthony Beshara  00:09:56
Yeah. And as I was, I was just mentioning, it's really become an integral part of our business. So as we look to transition clients off of on prem solutions. So IE the on prem versions of WLS and the on prem versions of ProMerit. We've also been very successful in migrating clients off of other systems. We've also sort of migrated clients away from doing things, believe it or not, in emails and spreadsheets and again, having all of our clients on a SAS cloud hosted solution, being able to deliver that solution is sort of one step in the process, but then you have to transition. So our clients, their teams, they have to transition to the new system, adapt some new processes, some procedures. And obviously there's a learning curve that goes along with that, because there are some slight nuances between the two systems in terms of process. WLS, typically, is a bit more manual than ProMerit. ProMerit is very customizable, has a lot of automation, a lot of functionality via, you know, API integrations, etc, that really enhance our customers experience. So being able to provide training to our clients, being able to help configure whether it's an existing warehouse facility or a new facility that they're taking on with a new client, or if it's just, you know, the day to day execution, fundings, payments, margin calls, reporting, etc., our team is able to do that. We're able to step in and be able to provide additional services to our clients, that this way they're not left sort of, you know, trying to figure things out. And could potentially, you know, have sort of a steeper learning curve than is really necessary.

Fergal McAlinden  00:11:56
So Anthony, what are the implications there for banks? How can they use that?

Anthony Beshara  00:12:01
Banks can utilize this, because a lot of banks are in the process of shifting a lot of their technology platforms to SAS cloud hosted solutions. And, you know, give credit to Michael Franco, our CEO, and Tom Britt, who's the head of residential real estate, for having the awareness and, you know, the vision to not only create a technology solution, that's, you know, moving ahead with technology, but also being able to offer a service solution to complement that technology, because of the way that banks the workplace have evolved, and it's, one is technology driven. Two is going back to COVID, when you had, sort of, you kind of had this, this transition of more people working from home, more people working from home, companies kind of seeing the value in in that ability. You know, sometimes it's difficult to say, hey, I'm going to build a team in Tampa or Dallas or Chicago or New York or wherever the location may be. Sometimes you may not be able to find talent or sustain talent as your organization grows and so the flexibility, the adaptability to be able to A. add you know site as AMCs, team of experienced resources, but also be able, to able to provide additional resource capacity in a remote format, really gives our clients a competitive advantage.

Fergal McAlinden  00:13:35
And you mentioned your service, Anthony, in your view, what's so appealing about it?

Anthony Beshara  00:13:40
Our service is very adaptable to market conditions, very scalable for our clients. And that's why our clients like it. You know that the business that we're in, you know, it's, it's not linear. It's about navigating, you know, navigating different market environments, different storms, if you will. There's, there's, what I like to call is, you know, there's peaks and valleys in warehouse finance and structured finance in general, and so the banks that generally have fared the best are the banks that are well positioned to navigate those peaks and valleys and to being able to adjust and scale up or scale down in those periods as you're Building a business, nobody wants to build a business where you go out and you hire, you know, 10, 15, 20 people. And then, you know, market conditions change, the bank strategy may change slightly, and then it's, you know, it's kind of back to like the, you know, hire and fire model, right? We're seeing a lot of our bank customers really trying to get away from that type of model. Utilize technology, utilize solutions that are going to add value to their business. Utilize strategic partners for services so that they can focus on their customers and their strategy. 

Fergal McAlinden  00:14:57
All right, brilliant, well, we've got constant evolution clearly at play there, which is great. Anthony, anything else that you wanted to add? Or any closing remarks for our viewers about SitusAMC’s warehouse lending technology, before we wrap things up? 

Anthony Beshara  00:15:08
Yeah, I would, I would leave our viewers with we're really focused and dedicated in the warehouse lending technology and service space. If you look at some of the things that we've done by like introducing the warehouse admin service team, building out collateral subgroups and creating standardized data sets for our customers is incredibly important. Over the last few years, the mortgage related products that our clients are financing has expanded significantly, and we've seen a lot more clients go from financing agency loans to expanding into a lot more nuanced products. And so by being able to create those collateral subtypes, so that you can finance all of these different products within ProMerit, and then also complement that with standardized data sets. If you're financing 20, 30, 50, different clients that are delivering data in different formats, you know you could spend half your day or more format just formatting data right? And so our team has created standardized data sets, which has greatly reduced that, you know, the need and the reliance of dependency on data mapping. It's created a lot of efficiency for our clients, so they can then turn around and execute fundings in a in a timely manner for their clients. And when you think about what's important to our clients, what's important to our client’s clients, it is ease of use, it is liquidity, it's timely execution. You know, those are the things that are really important to our clients. Some of the other things that we've been really focused on is building out strategic API integrations with strategic partners. And so couple of examples of that is, we've done a strategic integration with funding shield, which is a wire verification system, a key partner to us here at SituAMC a valued partner, FundingShield has been in this space for a number of years now, has really grown their customer base and the reliance in their product, and so being able to have an integration a click of a button for our customers to access FundingShields product before they're doing a funding and be able to get real time results in a matter of seconds, you know, again, it really gives us a competitive advantage in the space. The second integration that we've focused on is Snapdocs, which is eNote, eVault provider. They have a fantastic product, a fantastic tool, a really talented team at Snapdocs. We've worked very closely with them in integrating the Snapdocs platform into ProMerit, again, a key strategic integration for us. And this allows our customers, again, at a click of a button, to be able to have access to finance eNotes and have access to an eVault. And we've really streamed that stream on that process, so our clients do not have to be bouncing around to various systems. And that's really one of the keys that we've done in the key elements that we've been able to add value to our clients via ProMerit and, you know, and also via our service team, is eliminating what I like to refer to as sort of like the fumbling around, if you will, of going in and out of multiple systems to be able to execute a funding. You know, we've seen some clients maybe going in and out of anywhere from, you know, 10 to 15 different systems just to process a funding request. And you know, that really can put, you know, a customer at a competitive disadvantage. So we've really focused on streamlining that process and making our customers really efficient and, you know, that's always been my mindset is what you know, it's, it's, how do we add value to our customers? How do we add value to our customers business? How do we make them more efficient? How do we allow them to be more focused on their customer and executing their strategy? And that's what we're here at SitusAMC to do is to add value to our customer's business.

Fergal McAlinden  00:19:34
All right. Well, look, we will leave things there for today. Anthony, thanks first of all for being with us. Great to hear about everything that's been happening with SitusAMC and its offerings in the warehouse lending space really looking forward to hearing what's in store and keeping an eye on that. But yeah, for now, I really enjoyed the chat, and I'm sure we'll talk soon.

Anthony Beshara  00:19:52
Sounds great. Thanks for having me, Fergal. Have a great day. Appreciate it. 

Fergal McAlinden  00:19:55
Okay, well, that's just about all we have time for on today's edition of MPATV. My thanks once again to SitusAMC for joining us today. Thanks to you for watching and we will see you next time.