The chief executive officer of New Penn Financial LLC has co-founded a retail lender that will capitalize on home-equity loan products.
Jerry Schiano
has more than two decades in the mortgage business, including time at subprime lender ContiMortgage during the 90s.
In 1999, he founded Wilmington Finance, which became a subsidiary of AIG. He was president and CEO when he left the lender in 2006.
In April 2008,
he founded Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania-based New Penn and currently serves as its president and CEO.
Schiano has now co-founded Spring EQ, an announcement Monday indicated. The Philadelphia-based venture was created in May and opened for business last month.
Spring EQ is focusing on the HEL market. It says HEL lending has been quiet since the late 2000s when traditional first-lien mortgage production was active due to historically low interest rates.
But recently, Spring EQ says HEL business has recently begun to make a comeback because of appreciating home values and economic improvement.
So it says it is transforming HEL lending from
an inefficient, paper-based process to a digital-based process accessible from anywhere, anytime.
“My vision when forming Spring EQ was about bringing a truly better product to the consumer,” Schiano said in today’s statement. “I want to help underserved borrowers who are currently relying on high-rate personal loans and credit cards or refinancing with large up-front fees.
“We’re focused on balancing human interaction and expertise with technical efficiencies.”
Schiano’s experience in the subprime industry will serve him well in the HEL business. Non-bank junior-lien HELs used to be traded in the subprime secondary mortgage market prior to the sector’s disintegration in 2007.
He’ll
continue to concurrently serve as president and CEO of 2000-employee New Penn.
Spring EQ says it has “assembled a strong management team.” Executives have reportedly been recruited from the real estate finance and technology industries.
It is recruiting
production personnel for positions such as loan originator, mortgage processor and lending specialist. Other open jobs include operations fulfillment analyst, secondary market analyst and mortgage sales trainer.
