Lykken on Lending

<p class="ql-align-justify"><strong>The Lykken on Lending Weekly Mortgage Update</strong>&nbsp;delivers expert commentary and timely insights from across the mortgage industry. Each episode features a curated lineup of respected thought leaders and analysts:</p><p class="ql-align-justify"><br></p><ul><li class="ql-align-justify"><strong>Adam DeSanctis</strong>&nbsp;with the&nbsp;<em>MBA Mortgage Minute</em>, providing key updates from the Mortgage Bankers Association.</li><li class="ql-align-justify"><strong>Les Parker’s&nbsp;<em>TMSpotlight</em></strong>&nbsp;offers a macroeconomic perspective with his signature musical parodies.</li><li class="ql-align-justify"><strong>Matt Graham</strong>&nbsp;of MBS Live, breaking down market activity and interest rate movements.</li><li class="ql-align-justify"><strong>David Kittle</strong>, CEO of The Mortgage Collaborative, sharing insights on mortgage originations and industry trends.</li><li class="ql-align-justify"><strong>Alice Alvey</strong>&nbsp;of Union Home Mortgage, delivering essential regulatory and legislative updates.</li><li class="ql-align-justify"><strong>Allen Pollack</strong>, with the&nbsp;<em>Tech Report</em>, spotlighting emerging technologies impacting mortgage operations.</li><li class="ql-align-justify"><strong>Bill Corbet</strong>, presenting&nbsp;<em>Bill's Bullet Commentary</em>&nbsp;with focused insights on loan servicing and capital markets.</li><li class="ql-align-justify"><strong>Marc Helm</strong>, offering&nbsp;<em>Marc’s Rant</em>, an unfiltered take on operational and agency-related developments.</li></ul><p class="ql-align-justify"><br></p><p class="ql-align-justify">Together, this expert panel brings clarity, relevance, and a touch of personality to the ever-evolving mortgage landscape.</p>

<p>This commentary explores the growing tension between Federal Reserve policy, liquidity management, and emerging risks in the mortgage market, as panelists unpack rangebound rates, the limits of economic data, and concerns around leverage, fraud, and regulatory inconsistency. Drawing parallels to lessons from <em>The Big Short</em>, the discussion highlights how abundant reserves, yield-curve dynamics, and opaque policy decisions may be masking deeper systemic vulnerabilities. While optimism remains for lower rates in the years ahead, the conversation underscores the importance of discipline, transparency, and enforcement to prevent history from repeating itself in the mortgage and housing finance system.</p>

<p class="ql-align-justify">This podcast segment explores the rise of AI-driven mortgage fraud, real-world risks from AI hallucinations, and why human-in-the-loop controls and federal AI governance are critical for lenders and vendors.</p><p class="ql-align-justify">-----------------------------------------------------</p><h3 class="ql-align-justify"><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/allen-pollack/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(49, 130, 206);"><strong>Allen Pollack</strong></a><strong>, Tech Consultant</strong></h3><p class="ql-align-justify"><br></p><p class="ql-align-justify">Allen Pollack, a Mortgage &amp; Financial Services Technology Advisor, is a subject matter expert in the mortgage origination process along with software product management and software development.</p><p class="ql-align-justify"><br></p><p class="ql-align-justify">In today’s financial services push to all things Digital, Allen has been helping lenders and financial services solution providers align their digital transformation and technology strategies by removing the human element of risk, and automating processes that drive efficiencies and margins into profits.</p><p class="ql-align-justify"><br></p><p class="ql-align-justify">Over the course of his career, Allen has co-created and developed technology business models that have birthed highly successful, innovative solutions and companies.</p><p class="ql-align-justify"><br></p><p class="ql-align-justify">Allen co-founded and served as CTO of New York Loan Exchange (NYLX), a loan product eligibility and pricing engine (PPE) that made an immediate impact on the industry, scaling the company quickly and forming partnerships with multiple mortgage and financial lending companies. In 2012, Allen was a co-founder of a merger between NYLX and Aklero Risk Analytics that created LoanLogics, A Mortgage Loan Quality and Performance Analytics company. Allen served as CTO where he continued to bring new and innovative product solutions to the market that made a significant impact to mortgage lenders that reduced risk, scaled business channels, and grew profits in a very competitive and highly regulated market.</p><p class="ql-align-justify"><br></p><p class="ql-align-justify">Allen is also is mortgage and finance technology contributor on a weekly live industry podcast, Lykken on Lending, and is launching a new podcast soon to be released, TechStack Radio, dedicated to technology and innovation in Financial Services.</p>

<p class="ql-align-justify">This podcast segment breaks down the complex reasons behind the 30–40% surge in tri-merge credit report costs, examining regulatory mandates, FICO licensing fees, bureau markups, and the challenges of creating true competition without compromising fair lending or investor confidence.</p><p class="ql-align-justify">------------------------------------------------------------------</p><p class="ql-align-justify"><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/alice-alvey-master-cmb-79631b1/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(49, 130, 206);"><strong>Alice Alvey</strong></a><strong>, Master CMB</strong></p><p class="ql-align-justify">Vice President Partner Education and Training at&nbsp;<a href="https://www.unionhomemortgage.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(49, 130, 206);">Union Home Mortgage</a></p><p class="ql-align-justify"><br></p><p class="ql-align-justify">She handles development of their World Class Training program designed to support UHM partners and organizational effectiveness.</p><p class="ql-align-justify">Prior to UHM, Alice served as Senior Vice President at Indecomm leading the Indecomm-Mortgage U division, Internal QA and Compliance and SaaS technologies. Indecomm acquired Mortgage U in 2013, where Alice was President/Co-founder, providing training and consulting since 1996. Prior to MU she served as SVP of Operations at a national bank overseeing operations for wholesale, retail and correspondent from underwriting through servicing, and compliance.</p><p class="ql-align-justify"><br></p><p class="ql-align-justify">She has been in the trenches of mortgage lending operations from application through servicing for over 30 years. Her authoring work in training content, policies and procedures and the FHA/VA Practical guides illustrates her ability to bridge regulatory requirements with day-to-day operations.</p><p class="ql-align-justify"><br></p><p class="ql-align-justify">Alice&nbsp;has been a weekly contributor to the Lykken on Lending show since its beginning in April 2009 and has made her weekly contributions to 450+ episodes!</p>

<p class="ql-align-justify">This podcast segment explains how jobs data, the Fed’s dot plot, and reserve management purchases kept mortgage rates rangebound while markets wait for clearer inflation and employment signals.</p><p class="ql-align-justify">-----------------------------------------------------</p><p class="ql-align-justify"><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-graham-714bba8/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(49, 130, 206);">Matt</a>&nbsp;began as an originator in 2002. He fell in love with the idea of following MBS in real-time but felt that existing products were only scratching the surface. Thus was born MBS Live in 2007, the first-of-its-kind platform with real-time market data/analysis, and live chat with analysts, traders, and originators around the country. He is currently the Founder and CEO of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mbslive.net/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(49, 130, 206);">MBS</a>Live!</p><p class="ql-align-justify"><br></p><p class="ql-align-justify">He's been covering bond/mortgage markets, writing commentary, alerts, and chatting with the live community every business hour of every business day ever since.</p><p class="ql-align-justify"><br></p><p class="ql-align-justify">Matt also serves as the Chief of Operations for&nbsp;<a href="https://mortgagenewsdaily.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(49, 130, 206);">mortgagenewsdaily.com,</a>&nbsp;where he is one of the industry's most respected mortgage rate experts, frequently quoted in the media. Mortgage News Daily's rate index is used as the definitive resource on day-to-day mortgage rate averages.</p><p class="ql-align-justify"><br></p><p class="ql-align-justify">He lives in the Pacific Northwest with his wife and son, where he enjoys skiing, fishing, coaching youth sports, playing the guitar, and more DIY projects/hobbies than he'd care to admit.</p>