Don Scott: Frank Mortgage Providing An Easily Accessible, Open, And Transparent Marketplace

An interview conducted by Nicole Blair of Madeinca.ca, an online Canadian magazine whose primary goal is to focus on Canadian small businesses that show positive signs of innovation, growth, management, and excellence in areas that benefit our society. They aim to accelerate the growth of Canadian-based businesses and innovations by showcasing them to our readers across Canada.

Our mission is to offer an easily accessible, open, and transparent financing marketplace.

Frank Mortgage was built to grant mortgage customers autonomy and to empower them to make informed and personal financial decisions, free from the friction and biases that prevail in the mortgage market today. We provide an open and transparent mortgage marketplace via our online system and a proprietary algorithm.



• We believe in leveraging technology to put information and power in the hands of customers.
• We believe in placing customers first.
• We believe in tapping into the innate human desire to help others.
• We believe in made-in-Canada financing solutions for Canadians.

Tell us about yourself?

I have been involved in the mortgage market for 30 years. Most of that time was spent in banking on the capital markets side of the business, where I provided funding to mortgage lenders. I enjoyed providing that financing to many Canadian mortgage lenders over the years because I love their businesses, and I also felt that in doing so, we were indirectly helping to house Canadians. After I left banking, I wanted to do something different that I felt could add value to the mortgage market that I love. There are many issues with the traditional models for mortgage origination that I did not see anyone doing anything about. Issues related to the opaqueness of the market, the existing biases that work against borrowers, and the complexities in the process that just are not necessary. Now, with well-proven technologies and a demographic entering the housing market that wants tech-enabled solutions, I felt this was the right time to introduce an entirely new and modern approach to the mortgage market.

If you could go back in time a year or two, what piece of advice would you give yourself?

Don’t wait for the system you are building to be perfect before launch. The only true test is to go live, and only then can you get the feedback you need to know if you have something that works.



What problem does your business solve?

The mortgage market is structured to deliver positive results for mortgage brokers and lenders, but sometimes not for consumers. When you look at consumer reviews, you often see them describe the mortgage process as cumbersome, confusing, and opaque. Frankly, it just does not need to be that way. Frank Mortgage provides an easily accessible, open, and transparent marketplace, empowering users to be fully informed and in control of their personal financing journey. Our system offers the ease of an online application, instant feedback on your options, and a complete end-to-end online mortgage process. We produce an open and transparent look at all of the customer’s options, not just a couple that are hand selected by the mortgage broker. Our process eliminates the bias that incentivizes the mortgage broker to steer customers to products and lenders that work best for the mortgage broker – being open and transparent leads to a more honest and informative interaction with a customer that places their needs as the first and only priority.

What is the inspiration behind your business?

The average Canadian often exits a successful mortgage process feeling uncertain. Did they get the best deal? Were they provided with enough choices? Did they properly understand the process, the lender criteria, and the mortgage broker’s advice? Did they ask the right questions? They often also end up finding out late in the process that there are additional fees or costs they did not know about. These issues can all be handled with a tech-enabled process that delivers information, mortgage options, and choice directly to the consumer, all supported by expert advice from our team of licensed advisors. Ultimately, the consumer did not wake up one day and think they wanted a mortgage. What they wanted was a home. The mortgage is a secondary consideration that often detracts from the joy of acquiring a home. The ability to deliver tech-enabled solutions allows us to re-imagine how the mortgage process can work. By de-emphasizing the interests of the broker, our open, online mortgage marketplace empowers homebuyers in a way that allows them to focus their time on the ultimate objective of owning a home.

What is your magic sauce?

In general, the mortgage fintech competition follows one of two models. The first is layering technology on the front end of the traditional broker process. This results in some improvement, but it is not transforming the market to resolve current pain points. It maintains existing processes and biases. The other is a fintech mortgage broker that owns its own lender. They have an online application, but their bias is to steer you, as a customer, to their own lender. Both of these models perpetuate the marketplace that generates good results for brokers and lenders. Frank Mortgage has no such bias. We are singularly focused on good outcomes for the customer. We are uniquely open and transparent. Plus, we have a proprietary algorithm that produces mortgage alternatives for the customer so they can see what is possible. Our algorithm is agnostic. Presented with options, the customer is now able to make their own well-informed choice, and we have licensed advisors assisting them through the process so they can be comfortable they have everything they need to make this decision without sales pressure or coercion from an intermediary. Empowering the user to make their own choice is unique to our model and will deliver better outcomes.

What is the plan for the next 5 years? What do you want to achieve?

We now have market traction and are growing. We plan to push that growth and serve more and more Canadian mortgage borrowers over time with our innovation solution. We hope we can make real, valuable changes in the industry by:

1. Making mortgage information easier to obtain.
2. Allowing borrowers to see and understand their mortgage options more clearly.
3. Using technology to improve the mortgage file collection and vetting process.
4. Ultimately, bringing down the cost of borrowing by making the mortgage process more efficient.

We know the mortgage market is moving online. We hope to lead that transition away from the outdated, traditional processes in a positive way. If we can provide customers with greater control over personal financing decisions while also reducing the unnecessary stress and uncertainty that is a hallmark of today’s market, then we have accomplished our primary goal.

What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced so far?

Raising capital is a significant challenge. The fintech landscape is crowded, and now with the downturn in the market, there is very little private capital looking for mortgage fintech opportunities.

How can people get involved?

Canadians and Canadian residents that are i) looking for a new mortgage to buy their first home, ii) currently holding a mortgage but are unhappy with either the mortgage or their lender, iii) borrowers looking at refinancing options, or iv) mortgage customers just looking for a second opinion can visit us at Frank Mortgage where you can start an application or request to speak to someone live. Or they can simply call us at 1-888-850-1337.