Business Chief USA – August 2019

EXECUTIVE PROFILE

FOUR KEY PLATFORMS
On the front line of a lender’s relationship
with its clients is the point of sale (POS)
system. In a competitive environment,
the speed and efficiency with which a
loan application can be processed
makes all the difference. The POS
system Gateway selected was
provided by Blend, a Silicon Valley
software developer that now connects
more than 15,000 banks and financial
institutions to make routine checks. “It
used to take days or even weeks to get
through an application process, which
was stressful for the applicant, but now

on the mortgage side of the business

we average less than 30 minutes,”

stated Harpe. “We can automatically

pull W2s, tax records and the like,

ingest these files and use the Blend

platform to digest the information and

quickly get through the 1003 process.”

The difference this makes to the

customer experience is immense

and it helps Gateway deliver its vision

to realize the American Dream of

homeownership. As Blend’s founder

Nima Ghamsari has said, a large

number of people don’t realize they

qualify for home ownership until they

Steven Harpe, CIO

Harpe leads customers using a unique combination of business

experience coupled with 30 years of technology background

in large scale cloud computing operations and engineering

management. He has engineered, implemented, and managed

some of the world’s largest technology platforms with

multifaceted business applications. In addition, he has led

initiatives to digitize technologies based on aged architectures,

including providing mobile platforms. Harpe is dedicated to

enthusiastic and progressive leadership as a means of creating

and nurturing a lifelong passion of developing people to

achieve their goals. In April 2019 he was appointed to the

Oklahoma Board of Corrections. Harpe is a keen drummer

in his spare time, having backed a number of rock bands.

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