Intercontinental Exchange Inc. (ICE) is seeing an “overwhelmingly positive” response from mortgage servicers in response to its newly updated MSP platform user interface, as servicers view the update as the first step in a broader push toward automation and AI-driven efficiencies.
The update marks the first phase of a broader modernization of ICE’s MSP, highlighted by the launch of an enhanced user experience. The company also rolled out expanded escrow and investor reporting automations through the updated interface.
ICE said that escrow automation can cut manual touch points by as much as 87% and reduce processing times from about 10 days to as few as two. Automation for Freddie Mac loan-level investor reporting is expected to reduce manual steps by up to 68%.
Matt Dowd, ICE’s vice president of product management, spoke with HousingWire just days after debuting the modernized interface on Feb. 10. Dowd said the upgrade goes beyond aesthetics, positioning MSP to streamline high-frequency workflows such as escrow analysis and investor reporting.
Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Sarah Wolak: At the time of this conversation, we’re 10 days into the updated user interface. What’s the reception been like so far?
Matt Dowd: The response has been, I think, overwhelmingly positive, at least with the folks I’ve talked to. But what I found very interesting is that it’s really the screens — and what we’ve done is really the foundation for what’s actually here and what’s coming beyond that.
This update isn’t just about new screens or a modern UI and a look and feel. This is really just a foundation, the first step of a lot more things that are happening today. … In addition to mass escrow analysis and loan-level reporting, this foundation is where all of our AI is going to be built as well. So the first step was the screens, but really, it’s the transformation of MSP as a whole.
Wolak: Aside from the enhancement that allows servicers to consolidate reviews into single-screen workflows, what are the biggest improvements that will be noticed in the MSP update? What’s the payoff?
Dowd: A very concise answer would be, it’s all about productivity, and there are multiple levels of productivity that we’re expecting to see happen.
First and foremost, people are going to be able to get up to speed a lot faster … so we think training time that may take months is going to drop down to weeks. For those long-term MSP power users, they’re still going to be able to toggle back and forth however they want to, so there should be only productivity improvements on their side as well. I also think that [the update is] going to help servicers just run their business better.
Our core mission, from a product perspective, is really focused on lowering costs and risks, and one of the ways we’re doing that is around modernizing that platform. But additionally, with that, staying ahead of the regulatory environments. I think that’s often overlooked and I bring that up because that’s all-inclusive as part of MSP.
Wolak: There was a lot of discussion previously about the automation aspects of the update, including escrow and investor reporting. Can you elaborate on these?
Dowd: Those are workflows. We address things by workflows, like where can we drive the greatest efficiency? And within escrow, there are six or seven other workflows we want to address. … We’re taking a look at where we see the greatest value — where we can drive efficiency, whether it’s investor cash or escrow — as examples of where we should go. Because creating efficiencies is the foundation of everything. … We want servicers to be able to scale up or down as demand changes. The goal is for them to be able to scale their business up and down appropriately.
We have a full road map ahead. We have a list of automations that are ahead.
Wolak: What was the thought behind doing rollouts one or two at a time, rather than all at once? Is that intentional to get your servicers used to the updates?
Dowd: It wasn’t that we ever intentionally did one at a time; there could be five more or seven more automation levels. Really, what it depends on is the body of work, like how much engineering work we have to do.
But to get to your question, how we sequence it is, we look at the workflow today and how our users are operating in the system. And we ask, “Is this a high-frequency event?” And if so, how many times do they need a human interaction [to] touch the system? In the case of escrow, we looked at it and found it’s roughly 46 touches and the process was 10 days. So we cut that down with automation. Now it’s roughly six touches and two days.
We’ve done an analysis on every major workflow. One thing I like to make clear to people is that MSP has been building automation for decades. Part of the reason the industry is where it is today is because of all of the automation that we’ve built over the years. So we’re just continuing to improve on that, and listening to our clients and their needs.
We have to consider adoption. Regardless of what the software is, enabling your users to work in a new way doesn’t happen overnight. … They need to trust that what has become automated is working as it should. The goal is really to get our clients and users to really just focus on exceptions and to let the system do all the redundant, repetitive tasks that maybe don’t require a high level of knowledge. There are always those things that require that expertise and that knowledge base, and that’s how automation comes into play here.
Wolak: How is ICE measuring success from this update?
Dowd: We measure success by [asking if we are] delivering the value that we set out to accomplish. And we look at it through several ways: adoption, client satisfaction and efficiency. So when we talk to our clients, we ask if they’re seeing the efficiency. If the answer is no, then we have to look and figure out why not. But we do a lot of testing [and] we do a lot of building with our clients. … We have a high degree of interaction with our clients, so as we build and test, we’re getting real-time feedback.
Wolak: Given that the technology is aiming to reduce human interaction, or at least the redundant tasks, how do you manage corrections if the automation is ever wrong? Who takes responsibility?
Dowd: If the systems present something inaccurate, or the system sees something that doesn’t look right, we surface that to the user. That’s where a human steps in and says, here’s why that doesn’t look right. … So it’s all about checks and balances at that point.
As you look at exception-based workflow, systems are going to present things that don’t look right. And that’s exactly what it’s designed to do — if something doesn’t look right, to bring awareness to that user, who can then make the correction. To make the change, they just do it through the interface. But whether it’s agentic AI, whether it’s rules, whether it’s configuration in those tasks, we’re automating.
We look at AI at ICE as just another tool we can use to help with automation. One of the most critical capabilities of things you should think about as it relates to AI really has to do with your governance of it, and that involves permission, guardrails, data, etc. If your data isn’t right or your workflow isn’t right, AI is not going to fix that.
Because of the nature of ICE, data governance and guardrails and permission-based things are like second nature for us. .. We’re using AI to embed directly into mortgage workflows, not like a standalone tool or a generic chatbot. Our goals are going to be to reduce the operational cost and cycle time, improve decision quality, [provide a] consistent borrower and operator experience, and to maintain regulatory trust.