Craig Focardi, CMB
Biography
With a multi-disciplinary background in economics, finance, technology and marketing, Craig leverages his retail lending and banking industry experience to advise and consult on business-led technology strategy and investment for financial institutions, technology providers, and technology investment firms.
Craig's coverage areas include digital lending strategy, market sizing and technology selection across the credit lifecycle for all consumer credit products. Complementary coverage areas include analytics, digital content management and core system transformation. His advisory engagements have included core lending and banking system vendor selection for financial institutions, market feasibility and go-to market assessments for technology vendors, and technology provider acquisition due diligence for FinTech investors.
Craig is a frequent speaker and moderator at industry conferences, including BAI, Mortgage Bankers Association annual and technology conferences, and AFSA. He has also written dozens of bylined articles for Mortgage Banking Magazine, Lending Strategy (UK) and American Banker.
Craig began his career in economics and finance and marketing in the mortgage industry for lenders and IT vendors, including The Federal Home Loan Bank, The PMI Group, Wells Fargo, and CoreLogic. Craig then spent 16 years as a banking industry analyst at TowerGroup and CEB prior to joining Celent.
Craig received an M.A. in applied economics from the University of San Francisco and graduated with high honors from the State University of New York at Oneonta with a B.S. in business economics. Craig also attended Schiller University in Heidelberg, where he studied international trade. Craig holds the Certified Mortgage Banker (CMB) designation from the Mortgage Bankers Association.
Latest insights
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22 April 2024
Loan origination system (LOS) technology has changed more in the last five years than it had in the previous 20. Market dynamics are shifting as… -
21 March 2024
The imperative for financial institutions (FIs) to continuously add new technology capabilities drives them to evaluate existing systems to mode… -
13 March 2024
Retail loan origination requires the interplay of many internal and external systems to originate, underwrite, and close a loan. These processes… -
12 February 2024
The UK residential mortgage lending market is large and attractive to financial institutions based on the large transaction sizes and revenue pe…
Related events
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14 - 16 May 2024
400 E M.L.K. Jr Blvd, Charlotte, NC 28202, United StatesMeet up with Craig Focardi and Patricia Hines at nCino's annual conference, nSight. nSight is the global financial services industry's must-atte… -
20 - 23 May 2024
United StatesMark your calendars now! From May 20-23, 2024, FIS Emerald will be taking over the Gaylord Palms Resort and Convention Center and Orlando World… -
27 - 30 October 2024
United StatesMeet Industry Innovators & Experts at MBA’s Annual Convention & Expo 2024. The largest annual gathering of residential real estate finance profe… -
21 March 2024
AI: The Race is On - Accelerate to a Competitive Advantage with AI Virtual Event - March 21, 2024 Join us as we reflect on the advancements of A…
Related news
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4 October 2022
Once a cloud-native platform is operational, the Celent analysis shows that recurring costs to maintain it can drop by more than 80%. This means…
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26 September 2022
By Craig Focardi, Principal Analyst, Celent. Banking and financial markets are beginning to feel the effects of inflation and rising interest ra…
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16 November 2021
Today’s HousingWire Daily features a roundtable discussion on how the eClose explosion is reshaping the mortgage experience for lenders, hosted…
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8 November 2021
AI can improve customer engagement, provide analytics and handle back-office tasks, but the technology has its own drawbacks that financial inst…