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Client Bulletin: September 16, 2022

Important Details on Cenlar’s Annual Client Experience Survey

As your trusted partner, your opinion of how we’re doing is essential to the service we provide to you and your homeowners. That’s why in addition to our regular touch points, every fall we ask you to complete a client experience survey.

Look for a link to this year’s survey to arrive in your inbox on Monday, September 19 from MarketCast (surveys@cenlar.marketcast.com). The survey will be available for two weeks, and should take no more than 5 to 10 minutes to complete. Each link is personalized to you and your relationship with us, so please don’t forward the survey on to anyone else.

True partnership means listening to what you have to say, and we take what you say seriously. Your feedback will be shared across our organization so that we may use it to shape how we care for you and your homeowners. For example, when you told us last year that we needed to focus on improving in our call center, we heard you. We made investments in our telephony platform, and implemented training and education for team members in our call center. Meanwhile, enhanced digital capabilities — like CenNet and our virtual assistant bot — are helping your homeowners get the information they need the first time.

The result has been steady Contact Center performance in both the CI and DCC centers throughout 2022. Our call centers not only are outperforming GSE standards, they’re also consistently performing better than their peers, according to MBA industry benchmarks. We’ve hit all-time lows for call-in rate, and complaints and CCM tickets are trending down, both year-over-year and month-over-month. To top it all off, our post-call customer satisfaction survey scores just hit an all-time high in August.

We’re making tremendous progress, but we know there’s always opportunity to enhance how we serve you and your homeowners — which is why we love to hear from you.

Thank you for your partnership!

Streamlined Loss Draft Affidavit Process Now on Updated Client Support Matrix

Based on our analysis of CCM, we identified an opportunity regarding Loss Draft Affidavits. To allow you to self-serve and streamline this process, you can now use our website to upload the document.

Fax and regular mail also remain options, once a claim is opened.  Please be sure to include the loan number on all documents submitted (even if handwritten).

Clients and homeowners can report a new claim using one of the following:

Once a claim is opened, all required claim documents can be sent using the following methods:

  • By mail: Cenlar (or Client Name for Private Label Clients)

Attn: Loss Drafts
PO Box 202033
Florence, SC  29502-2033

  • By overnight mail: Cenlar (or Client Name for Private Label Clients)

Attn: Loss Drafts
1323 Celebration Boulevard
Florence, SC  29501

In a separate change, references to the legaldescriptions@cenlar.com email box have been removed from the Client Support Matrix. Now, clients should upload all missing data and documents for recently boarded loans via Meta.

We also have removed the Multiple Tax Parcel email box from the Client Support Matrix, as that is now supported in CCM.

An updated version of the support matrix is available on CenAccess.

Upcoming Change to NLAI Interface for HELOC Clients

All HELOC clients boarding new loans via the NLAI interface should be aware of a change to be implemented soon.

Effective Monday, Sept. 19, 2022, for all loans that are not a 575 property type and the EL Secured Flag is not specified/supplied by the client, Cenlar will default to a value of “Y” in this field and provide a warning notice to the client. The “Y” value indicates that the loan is real estate secured.

This change will only create a warning notice. It will not cause the loan to be rejected from boarding.

If you have any questions, please contact your client manager.

ICYMI: Please Share This MOVEit Testing Information
with Your IT Team

Our preparations for upgrading MOVEit, the application we use to share files with you, has begun. As we communicated in the last Client Bulletin, the next step in the process is for your organization to assure that the appropriate IP addresses are whitelisted then validated during the testing window:  September 6-30.  Please share this information with your IT team.

Part of the testing will require your team to validate your applicable inbound (pull) and outbound (push) connectivity. The specific test instructions are below. Please notify your Cenlar client manager and the MOVEitUpgrade@Cenlar.com mailbox when you have successfully completed testing.

We thank those of you who have tested already, and apologize for the expired passwords that you may have encountered, and for delays in responding to emails sent to the MOVEitUpgrade email box. Effective September 12, an additional person has been assigned to monitor and respond to emails.

For those clients who have not tested yet, we ask that you complete testing before close of business on September 30 in preparation for the October 15 migration to the cloud.

About the Test Connection and Credentials & Passwords

We recommend that the test connection only be used for testing purposes and be removed once testing is successful in order to avoid accidental use in the future.

Please note that user credentials and passwords were copied to the test environment on August 12. If your password has expired and changed in the production environment since that time, please use your old password to access the test environment.

Testing Instructions

Please follow the testing method below that best matches how your company retrieves data from or transmits data to Cenlar.

Testing Method 1

Testing connectivity using a standards-based file transfer application (e.g., FileZilla, WinSCP, Axway, MOVEit Automation, JSCAPE, etc.)

  • Create a brand new connection in your file transfer application with the below information:
    • Domain: sfttest2022.cennet.com
    • The port and your credentials, such as username, password, and any SSH keys used will remain as they were prior to August 12. Please mirror them from the Production connection you use today. If you need assistance, please see the Troubleshooting section below.
  • Using the new test connection you just created, please attempt a connection.  We strongly recommend no file transfers during testing at this time.
  • Please instruct your application to perform a directory listing, such as the ls command.
    • If a response is returned from the above, the connection was successful and communication with our cloud environment has been successfully tested.
    • If an error occurs, please see the Troubleshooting section below.
  • Once the directory listing is complete, please disconnect.
  • Please remove the new connection that was created in your file transfer application for this test.
  • Please see the Upon Success section below.

 

Testing Method 2

Testing connectivity using your web browser

  •  Point your web browser to https://sfttest2022.cennet.com/.
  •  A webpage will load instructing you to log in.
  • Log in using your existing credentials, as they were prior to August 12. If you need assistance, please see the Troubleshooting section below.
  • Upon successful login, please log out.
  • Please see the Upon Success section below.

Note: If the above methods do not match how you transfer files because Cenlar initiates the file transfer activity, Cenlar will be testing connectivity to you. Please jump ahead to the Other Helpful Info section below.

Upon Success

When you have successfully tested the connectivity, please reach out to your client manager to let us know and indicate what testing method you used.

Troubleshooting

If you have questions or issues during testing, please send an email to MOVEitUpgrade@Cenlar.com with the subject line “[TESTING FAILED] Your Company Name.” Please describe your issue, and what you attempted in the body of the email.

Other Helpful Info

Cenlar will be conducting our own internal connectivity testing. We will not be sending any files, but you may notice some traffic from these IP addresses:

Server    IP Address
Production 12.151.180.139
Disaster Recovery 12.221.120.235

Additional Testing

If you require additional testing, please reach out to us by sending an email to MOVEitUpgrade@Cenlar.com with “Additional Testing Requested” in the subject.

Director 6 Retiring Monday, September 26

We will be retiring Director 6 on Monday, Sept. 26. Any users not converted to Director 7, our new release, by Sept. 26 will no longer have access to Director.

We will reach out to individual users still using Director 6 to assist in their conversion to Director 7. Please note that, when logging in to Citrix, you should no longer see the Director 6 icon; only the Director 7 icon will remain.

We appreciate your support as we work towards retiring the old version of Director. If you have any questions, please contact your client manager.

Pre Year-End Corrections for Tax Year 2022

Be sure to review your monthly Year-End Client Report regularly for accuracy. If you need any corrections to the upfront MI, Points and/or Initial Interest information, you can have these adjustments made for you throughout the year by submitting a request through CCM.

If you have any questions, please reach out to your client manager.

Ang Shen Adds to Cenlar’s Risk Management Bench Strength

Ang Shen has joined Cenlar as Vice President of Model Risk Management.

He will lead the Model Risk Management (MRM) function, supporting Cenlar’s Enterprise Risk Management. In this role, he will be responsible for managing a team who will perform independent governance and validation of all models used across the organization, in compliance with related regulatory guidance and requirements.

“Ang has an extensive background in developing risk models for various banks and financial institutions, and will serve as a valuable part of the team,” said Sara Avery, Chief Risk Officer. “His role is a critical part of Cenlar’s continuous refinement of our rigorous risk management strategy.”

Prior to joining Cenlar, Ang spent nearly 12 years at KPMG LLP’s advisory practice where he was most recently an Advisory Director in the Modeling & Valuation group. During his tenure at KPMG, he led numerous model-related engagements at a wide spectrum of financial institutions. As the engagement director and primary point of contact, he successfully delivered a large volume of complex model validations for some of the firm’s largest model risk clients. Ang is recognized as a trusted advisor by his industry connections, especially the heads of MRM at many banks. Before KPMG, Ang worked on mortgage valuation at the Federal Home Loan Bank of Atlanta.

“As an independent validator who provides effective challenge to model owners, I am a firm believer of transparent communication and close collaboration,” Ang said. “My goal is to partner with the business units to build robust model risk management practice in assisting the company’s business decisions.”

ICYMI: September 8 Cenlar Leadership Update

Thanks to all of you who were able to attend our September 8 call with Cenlar leadership. We always appreciate the opportunity to talk with you about the investments, enhancements and progress we’re making across the business.

If you missed the call, a presentation provided to all our clients prior to the meeting can be found here.

We look forward to sharing more about the work we’re doing as we go forward, and greatly appreciate your partnership. If you have any questions or feedback, please reach out to your client manager.

 
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