For Blue Water Mortgage, technology is inseparable from the business.
Mortgage lending depends on protecting sensitive borrower information, maintaining reliable systems, meeting regulatory requirements, and keeping transactions moving. Blue Water needs a technology partner that can stay ahead of those demands while allowing its team to focus on serving borrowers.
Today, RedHelm fills that role.
“We can just do our job. At the end of the day, that’s the big goal.
I don’t have to worry about it. They’ve got it.”
Jason Caruso, SVP Operations at Blue Water Mortgage
The Challenge: Staying Ahead in a Highly Regulated Industry
Technology and cybersecurity are fundamental to Blue Water’s ability to operate. The company handles sensitive personal and financial information and undergoes examinations by state banking departments, making security and regulatory preparedness ongoing priorities.
“We don’t want to skimp in these areas,” Jason said. “Security, confidentiality, all these things are hyper important for us.”
But staying secure means more than meeting today’s requirements. Threats evolve, new requirements emerge, and technology needs to keep pace with the business.
Blue Water needed the resources and expertise behind it to continually look ahead, not just respond when something went wrong.
The Solution: A Proactive Technology and Security Partnership
RedHelm works with Blue Water to maintain a technology roadmap spanning immediate priorities, initiatives throughout the year, and longer-term needs.
“They helped us put this nice roadmap together and plan some things out throughout a calendar year and even beyond that,” Jason said.
More importantly, RedHelm brings a proactive perspective to the relationship. When Blue Water raises a project or regulatory requirement, the team considers what else the organization should be thinking about, from vulnerability testing and security controls to infrastructure and employee awareness.
“Even if they’re things we’re not thinking about, RedHelm is thinking about them for us and making sure we’re implementing,” Jason said.
That approach extends to everyday cybersecurity.
RedHelm has helped strengthen employee phishing awareness while also providing the monitoring and response capabilities needed when mistakes happen. On the rare occasion an employee has clicked a suspicious link, RedHelm has been able to quickly investigate and isolate the issue before it escalates.
“They’re right in there in our software, and their team just quickly isolates it and takes care of the problem,” Jason said. “It never goes beyond that.”
The Result: Confidence to Focus on the Business
For Blue Water, the biggest impact is straightforward: its team can focus on mortgages instead of worrying about IT and cybersecurity.
“We’re just able to come in day in and day out, perform the job, take care of business, and help our clients move through the process and close on their loan,” Jason said.
The partnership also gives Blue Water greater confidence when facing regulatory examinations. Rather than simply meeting minimum requirements, Jason knows the company has a larger technology and cybersecurity team helping it stay ahead.
“We’ve got a really big company behind us that gives me the confidence to tell the examiners, ‘No, we’re actually going above and beyond what’s actually required.’”
That confidence extends to borrowers. Whether customers are submitting applications or uploading sensitive documents, Blue Water knows the systems protecting that information are being actively monitored and managed.
“They’ve always got a nice proactive eye on our business,” Jason said. “It gives us that confidence and that comfort level to just do our job.”
A Partnership Blue Water Would Recommend
For other mortgage or financial services organizations considering RedHelm, Jason’s recommendation is simple.
“I would recommend them without hesitation,” he said. “This isn’t an area that you want to skimp on. You want to take it seriously.”
“If you want a partner that is going to have your best interests at heart and is going to protect you and your organization, to me you almost can’t put a price on it.”
