The core technology for a title company has always been its title production software (TPS), and as the real estate transaction has become more complex, title companies have looked to their TPS providers to streamline the production process by developing more features.

Let’s face it. Not all TPS are created the same. But what title and escrow firm owners need is: a unified, simplified experience for users.  Their jobs are already stressful enough.  Having multiple applications to manage, login into and understand, all while staying vigilant for cyber fraud, is hard enough. A TPS that unifies and simplifies the user experience WITHOUT limiting connections to other vendors is ideal.

But features alone do not solve the ultimate challenge of putting together a complicated title, escrow and closing package since there are many pieces in that package arriving into the system from a host of providers.

The better approach using today’s technological tools may be to become not the “gadget” platform but instead the “hub” platform. 

What title agents want is a unified experience that funnels all of the bits and pieces to a core operating platform, which is less about adding features and more about connecting to critical providers in a way that eliminates switching from one program to another and in fact embeds other software directly into the process itself. 

Embedded financial services

An example of this idea is embedded financial services, where you have a portal directly linked to the account within the TPS. This is already in play for companies who use another kind of TPS – a transaction processing system.

According to Edenred, a UK-based payment solutions company, “Embedded banking means integrating banking services — like payments, accounts, cards or lending — directly into a non-financial company’s digital product or platform. This goes beyond offering payments at checkout. It’s about embedding the full stack of banking functionality right where your users already are.”

This same concept can be applied to many of the applications title agents must use and connections they must make to manage the entire transaction process. But to get these functions embedded in the TPS does require rethinking the entire approach to title software.

APIs and cloud-based environments are the key

The advent of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) has been critical in developing these embedded systems. The API acts as an intermediary, allowing one piece of software to ask for information from another system without needing to understand or navigate the internal operations of the responding software.

Cloud based systems open the door to these connections as well by offering the heightened power of cloud computing for data storage, analytics and remote management.

Together, these new tools combined with artificial intelligence are creating the potential for a more open, immediate and intelligent ecosystem that is quite different from the isolated legacy systems we currently rely upon to manage the complex real estate transaction in our title offices.

At Settlor, we pride ourselves on providing a provider-agnostic solution, allowing title firms to choose the tech stack pieces that meet their unique needs. We offer the first and only cloud-based platform that simplifies the user experience by combining modern technology with three decades of user input and refinement. Settlor offers users real-time data sharing, documents, quick access to critical information, in-app communication, enhanced security and ownership over personal data. Best of all, we’re from the title industry, and we’re here for the long haul! Contact us today to learn more.