Small firm appeals
to lending exec

Nancy Higa New Job: Promoted at Finance Factors Ltd. to vice president and operations manager of the residential loan division. Residential loans make up about 61 percent of the lender's new business this year. Old job: Closing supervisor and the construction loan disbursement coordinator. Experience: 20 years of banking and managerial experience, specifically in residential lending. Born and raised: Oahu Age: 48

Question: Where did you start your career?

Answer: I started at International Savings and Loan and I started my lending career there, from processing to underwriting loan servicing manager, loan processing and closing manager. I went to American Savings Bank for a year from 1999 to 2000. I joined Finance Factors in 2002.

Q: What got you interested in lending?

A: I initially started in the marketing department and eventually transferred into the loan area. I found it interesting. Working each file is different. You're dealing with different borrowers, income levels, the property itself is different. Doing the appraisals.

Q: Why did you pick it over marketing?

A: I guess because it's dealing with real estate and home ownership is important. It's just a part of life to have a home and obtaining the loan and going through obtaining the loan.

Q: What brought you to Finance Factors?

A: It's a smaller company and it's family oriented and one of the visions is to provide a high level of customer service.

Q: How much of your loans are adjustable these days?

A: In our portfolio, 19.4 percent of the loans originated in this year are fixed and 80.6 percent of residential portfolio loans are adjustable. This does not include home-equity credit lines and construction loans.

Q: Could mortgage rates be a full percentage point higher in a year?

A: I don't believe so.

Q: What will happen to rates, and why?

A: I think it would be going up but I don't think it would be a drastic increase. It would probably be a slow increase. It's just a trend. It hasn't really gone up that much within the past few years.

Q: What are your plans?

A: It's primarily to streamline the operations and to operate more efficiently and of course to be sure that it's in compliance with federal and state regulations, the secondary market investor requirements and our company policies.

Q: What kind of streamlining?

A: It's training and cross-training the staff. We do the type of products that are salable to the secondary market investors. We also do portfolio loans and we like to have our staff do cross training to do both type of products. During the refinancing boom we had those that were more focused on the secondary-market type of products versus those that were focused on portfolio. Now that volume is not as high as it was, it's a good time to have staff cross train.