LiveWorld Transcripts

NBCi presents

E-LOAN CEO and co-founder Chris Larsen
The benefits of securing a mortgage from an online broker

July 29, 1999

Chris Larsen, CEO and co-founder of E-LOAN, chats about the benefits of securing a mortgage from an online broker and how to find one that is best for you.

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CNBC: Welcome to CNBC.com's MoneyTalk Live! Our guest today is E-LOAN CEO and Co-Founder Chris Larsen. He's here only weeks after his firm went public on June 29th. Mr. Larsen is the Co-Founder and CEO of E-LOAN, a leading online mortgage broker which originates & sells mortgage loans secured by residential real estate. He has extensive financial system design and technical expertise from his previous work at Chevron Corp. and NASA's Ames Research Center. In 1991, he co-founded Palo Alto Funding Group, a successful mortgage brokerage. Mr. Larsen holds an MBA from Stanford University and a BS degree University.

Chris Larsen: Thank you for joining us today, I'll be glad to answer any questions you may have about our business.

Fixedrate: What advantages are there for getting a mortgage loan online versus other traditional outlets?

Chris Larsen: There's really three advantages. First of all on price, we save on average $1500 per loan transaction, because we use technology to eliminate unnecessary intermediaries On selection, E-LOAN is a multi-lender, so we offer over 50,000 different mortgage products, 70 different lending sources. Third, is service. We provide both high technology and products such as E-Track, which allows people to monitor their transactions 24 hours per day, as well as having live assistance from people who would help borrowers through the entire process.

NewsieGuy: how much of the loan decision and/or process is handled by computers and how much by "loan committees"?

Chris Larsen: Basically, the entire process for approval is automated. We have automated approval system, when a consumer submits an application online, we provide a real-time approval through our automated technology, and that provides a substantially better experience.

Nuke: Mr. Larson, All of the large banks are creating their own e-finance centers. How will E-LOAN attract the consumers?

Chris Larsen: In fact, we are a partner with many of those institutions. For example, BankOne recently created an online bank called Wingspan Bank, which is being aggressively advertised nationwide. They have selected E-LOAN as the exclusive partner to provide mortgages online. We feel that's a trend, and that E-LOAN, as the first mover, and really we think the best product, will continue to partner with these online banks, because we think that's best for the bank, E-LOAN, and the consumer.

Kiro: I took a mortgage from ETRADE and lot of people I know are. Are you going to lose your relationship with them. Once they become this one stop financial site, with TELEBANK merger?

Chris Larsen: We have an exclusive distribution deal with E-Trade which will last another two years. In addition, E-Trade does own about 1 percent of E-LOAN, so we're very close to the company, and they are very happy with our partnership, so we see that continuing to be a very positive and fruitful relationship.

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