Getting sensitive documents from borrowers just got easier and more secure thanks to a new service that pulls customer information directly from the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA).
Launched nationwide in April, Fastkey Technology allows lenders and brokers to access essential documents for mortgage or loan applications within minutes, including Notices of Assessment, income statements, proof of income, tax slips, and Canada child benefit details.
“By default, we do two years of those five documents for an applicant,” says Sam Khajeei, the company’s president and co-founder. “I have had brokers make bespoke requests, which I can fulfill as well.”
A commercial lawyer by trade, Khajeei and his co-founders came up with the idea for Fastkey after identifying how hard it was for mortgage lenders and brokers to access the documents they need to facilitate a loan.
“To vet an applicant either for a commercial loan, a car loan or a mortgage, they need CRA documents, and right now the process is, unfortunately, very manual,” he says. “You email the applicant and say, ‘I’m looking for two years of this, two years of that, please go get it and scan it and send it to me’ which can cause a whole lot of problems.”
Khajeei adds that asking clients to find, scan and send the right documents can delay approval processes, and even risk client relationships, as some may prefer to work with an existing provider like their bank to avoid the extra paperwork. Not only is the traditional process time consuming and cumbersome, but it’s also not very secure, since the documents aren’t coming directly from the source.
“The problem is that you’ve lost this chain of custody that you want to maintain because you want to make sure there’s been no tampering with the information,” he says. “With incoming regulations, there’s a trend towards cracking down on fraud, and one of the things that Fastkey does is it directly extracts the information from CRA and directly sends it to the lender or the broker.”
Khajeei adds that in a lending environment where face-to-face interactions are becoming less common, brokers and lenders need a way to quickly and securely access and verify customer data.
EFILE vs. authorized representative authorization
While other providers have sought to offer similar services, Khajeei says they accessed CRA documents by registering for EFILE authorization — which is intended for accountants filing taxes on behalf of clients.
“They were using a pathway which was never intended for that usage, and eventually the CRA became aware that they had 1,000 authorized representatives on the account, but never filed a tax return or did any tax filings,” he said. “Those parties either had their account status blocked or authority to access the CRA revoked.”
Fastkey instead seeks access to customer CRA accounts as an “authorized representative.” Unlike EFILE access, that only lets the company view and download CRA documents without the ability to make changes or filings.
Khajeei adds that he has been in touch with CRA representatives who confirmed Fastkey’s approach was in line with the regulations set out in the Income Tax Act.
How it works
Brokers and lenders can register for a free account on fastkey.com. Once the company verifies their lender or broker status — which Khajeei says typically takes 20 minutes — they’ll gain access to the platform’s full suite of services, which includes criminal record checks, credit score reports, asset reports, income verification, and CRA documents.
Registering with the platform is free, but each service has an associated cost. The current rate for requesting CRA documents is $19.99 plus tax, which Khajeei says can be paid by either the broker or applicant by credit card.
Lenders and brokers who select the option to request CRA documents will be asked to provide the name, email address and phone number of the applicant. “We also have a customized box where they can write a personal message so that the legitimacy of this request coming from your broker is acknowledged by the applicant,” Khajeei says.
Borrowers then receive an email with step-by-step instructions — as well as an instructional video — for logging into their My CRA account and giving Fastkey authorized representative status. (Those without a My CRA account will also be given instructions for setting one up.)
“Once they certify that they completed those steps — and assuming they actually did — we get a notification on our backend and it automatically pulls exactly what the mortgage broker or lender had asked from the CRA and sends that information to their dashboard,” Khajeei says, adding that it typically takes about 20 minutes for the information to appear.
Partnerships and future ambitions
Fastkey recently engaged in a 90-day pilot program with Newton Connectivity Systems’ Velocity operator platform, which invited a select group of 100 brokers to use the tool for free.
“In that time, Fastkey and Velocity will be working together to learn some best practices,” Khajeei says, adding that the aim is to expand access to the rest of the platform’s users after the pilot.
Furthermore, while the service is currently limited to individual borrowers, Khajeei says he hopes to offer the same capabilities to commercial clients in the future.
“We also want to start thinking about how to help brokers address incoming regulations,” he says. “Identity verification is one solution that we’ve implemented to try to address incoming regulations relating to KYC (know your client), and we will explore other solutions that might be available once we fully understand the legislation that’s being enacted.”
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cra CRA income verification Fastkey fintech mortgage broker technology Sam Khajeei technology
Last modified: July 20, 2024
