How the Microsoft chaos impacted Canada’s mortgage industry
His primary concern is with enquiries that arrive during the blackout period. “I think the biggest issue here would be if there are any new inquiries trying to email us,” he said. “But they would certainly be aware of the outage so would generally call, text, or wait it out.”
For some brokers, the outage had zero effect on day-to-day operations. “Honestly, this did not impact us at all,” Taz Zaide of 6ix Mortgage Group said. “Everything moved along as usual just like any other day on our end.”
Outage compounds mortgage industry’s staffing problems
One factor that extends well beyond any single outage, Clarke said, is an industry already running short on staff. “Every [part of the] industry is so understaffed,” he said. “Everyone’s busy. So for you to even notice that you didn’t get something, you’ve got to be pretty proactive on a file to check in.”
Most professionals are reacting to emails, he said, rather than monitoring for their absence. “If I was on the road yesterday, I would have probably missed things,” he said.
The disruption extended across the mortgage industry globally. The impact was immediate and widespread for Katherine Stagg, founder and managing director of Stagg Mortgage Services in the United Kingdom.
