As someone who has been on the receiving and giving end of point-of-sale (POS) demos and evaluations, I find that a lot of people end up measuring the wrong thing. It is super important that feature grids get filled in, borrower screens get compared, but a big question that determines what the next five years doesn’t always make the list: are the POS and the Loan Origination Solution (LOS) two separate platforms that connect via API or are they on one platform with one record?
If you ask a loan officer where the day goes, they will say that a fair amount of it goes to the space between two pieces of software, the handoffs, the re-keying, etc. The loan that looks complete in one place and incomplete in the other, and the phone call to the borrower that starts with an apology for asking again. That space is not a workflow problem the way it gets talked about at conferences, it is an architecture problem, and it exists because most lenders bought a POS from one company and a LOS from another and then paid somebody to make the two of them agree with each other every night.
Why does the seam between POS and LOS cost so much?
An integrated POS and LOS share data on a schedule. A POS built into the LOS (like on the Empower platform) shares a record, continuously, because there is only one. When the borrower updates an asset in our POS, the loan officer is not waiting for a sync to see it, and neither is anyone downstream. Nothing has to be mapped, reconciled or explained to a vendor when the URLA changes.
That is the whole argument for the POS in Empower. It is not connected to the LOS, it is part of it.
“We did not want to sell lenders a second piece of software and call it a platform. The point of sale and the loan origination solution should be the same thing, and in Empower they are.”
Can two loan officers work two different ways on the same file?
Yes, and our POS is built around that. Some loan officers think in the borrower’s language and some think in URLA sections, so the release supports a Borrower View and a URLA View over the same underlying loan record. The view changes, the data does not, which means a team can stop standardizing on one habit and still keep one version of the truth. Pipeline actions now launch straight into the correct application screen as well, so the click count between “I should follow up on this lead” and “I am working this application” comes down.
“Loan officers do not all think the same way about a file, and software that only supports one of those ways quietly costs a lender production.”
How does one workspace stay compliant once the loan moves?
Visibility and edit rights are separate things in our POS. When a loan hits a configured milestone such as underwriting, the application moves into read-only for the loan officer, who keeps full sight of every screen and every field without being able to change what underwriting is working from. The controls follow the loan because the controls live in Empower, not in a second product trying to guess where the loan is.
This recent release also adds configurable soft-pull credit consent, so lenders can run soft-pull and hard-pull workflows and keep the consent status, date and user on the record.
What else shipped for loan officer productivity?
Pricing got the same attention. Loan officers can hold multiple scenarios in Free Mode and Loan Mode, keep those scenarios after the loan is created, compare them side by side, and reprice without building them again, with a Current Loan scenario that always reflects live loan data. Application through pricing is now one continuous piece of work rather than a set of destinations.
FAQ
Is the POS in Empower a separate product?
No. It is part of Empower, our loan origination solution. There is no integration layer between the two and no second vendor in the middle, so borrower-entered data and loan data are the same record.
What changed for loan officers in the 26.4 release?
The application became the workspace. Loan officers start, resume, edit and review applications from one place, launch into the right application screen directly from pipeline actions, and work in either a Borrower View or a URLA View over the same loan.
Does one workspace weaken compliance controls?
No. Applications move to read-only for loan officers when the loan reaches a configured milestone such as underwriting. Visibility stays open, edit rights close, and the controls are enforced by Empower.
Which channels does it support?
Retail, wholesale, correspondent, consumer-direct and home equity, on one platform.
Do we have to be on Empower to use it?
Yes. Being part of Empower is what makes it work this way.
Interested to learn more?
