Good afternoon —
We saw a huge increase in digital closings in 2020 due to the pandemic, but the question has always been what kind of staying power digital closings would have as we moved into more normal times. A new survey from ALTA provides some data to understand where we are in adoption/deployment of digital closings.
In their survey of 300 title professionals, 46% said they offer digital closings — a big leap from before the pandemic, when only 14% said they offered the service.
"Since the onset of the pandemic, title and settlement professionals rapidly adapted their processes to meet the needs of their customers and to continue facilitating safe and secure closings, and one of the title industry's most important tools in this process has been remote online notarization," Tomb said.
RON gained traction during the pandemic and is now offered by 35% of the companies that took the survey. But widespread use of RON continues to be hampered by state laws that forbid it, which is why Sens. Mark Warner and Kevin Cramer reintroduced federal legislation in May to allow RON nationwide.
The SECURE Notarization Act would allow the immediate nationwide use of RON by every notary in the United States, and would also require the use of tamper-evident technology in electronic notarizations, and help prevent fraud through the use of multifactor authentication. The concern over security has been a key sticking point with opponents (including at the state level), while proponents think it has the potential to be much safer than in-person notarization.
The bill was first proposed in March of 2020, but with a new Congress and a new administration, the senators (and many in the industry) think the bill has a better chance this year. These stats from ALTA show how popular RON is even with the state barriers still in place. Seems the tide for federal legislation is gaining momentum.
Sarah Wheeler
HousingWire Editor in Chief
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