At DocMagic’s May 27 webinar, “Road-Tested eClosing Strategies for Today,” Ben Sherman, president of real estate recording services firm Synrgo, shared some surprising facts and numbers about county recorders and electronic closings.

Twenty years ago today, President Clinton signed into law the Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce (ESIGN) Act, which declared that electronic signatures are as legally binding as wet signatures. And ten years ago today, Congress honored that achievement by designating June 30 National ESIGN Day.

The remote online notarization (RON) landscape is still very much in flux. Three states recently passed RON laws and a new survey shows RON usage surged during the pandemic—but a powerful official from one of the country’s biggest states also announced his opposition to any federal law.

Even as demand for remote online notarization (RON) grows, underwriters and settlement agents are hesitant to fully embrace it. They have some good reasons why.

Brian Pannell, DocMagic’s Chief eServices Executive, has been named one of the inaugural winners of the Thought Leader Award by the PROGRESS in Lending Association. Only 30 people across the entire mortgage industry received this honor.

When the coronavirus pandemic hit, several states issued emergency orders to allow remote notarizations, joining 23 that already had permanent laws allowing remote online notarization (RON). A number of the stopgap measures, however, didn’t actually allow RON; instead they authorized a decidedly lower-tech alternative called remote ink-signed notarization (RIN).

For the mortgage industry, a lot has changed in a short amount of time—especially when it comes to remote online notarization (RON), according to the speakers at DocMagic’s May 27 webinar, “Road-Tested eClosing Strategies for Today.”

DocMagic is making an agnostic version of its eSign technology free to help organizations increase productivity and efficiency among work-from-home employees during the coronavirus pandemic—both during the stay-at-home orders and after they are lifted.

The coronavirus pandemic has led to wide-ranging industry acceptance of eMortgages, eNotes, and digital closings, according to a recent article in National Mortgage News (subscription required).

A recent DocMagic update has made it easier to conduct transactions that involve someone with power of attorney (POA) acting on a borrower’s behalf, especially during the closing event. This is crucial during the current COVID-19 era, helping to reduce the amount of in-person contact needed by borrowers and title companies.