On Tuesday, Digital Matrix Systems (DMS) enhanced its suite of solutions to assist finance companies to navigate through new mandates federal officials have put in place in response to COVID-19.

The company announced the availability of a new subset of its DMS Summary Attributes that have been tailored to help finance companies and other lenders respond effectively to consumer protections afforded by the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. 

DMS explained this set of tri-bureau attributes is available to leverage on both archived and production data.

The company recapped that the 2020 CARES Act provides consumers with loan modification options that lenders must address today and for the foreseeable future.  DMS cautioned that a “one size fits all” approach offered by many scores or simply ignoring these modifications will not serve lenders or their customers well. 

To help clients detect and monitor loan modifications effectively, DMS has identified six specific scenarios that are addressed by these new attributes and can provide professional services to help clients with the required analysis. They include:

• Deferred: Temporary delay to the start of payments, typically for new loans

• Forbearance: Temporary suspension of payments, with payments moved to the end of the loan

• Natural disaster: Consumer ability to pay impacted by a natural or declared disaster

• Loan modification: Change to existing loan terms such as length of time for repayment or loan type

• Payment plan: Agreed upon plan to pay outstanding debts within defined terms

• Inferred modification: Tradeline has a balance but no stated monthly payment amount

To help identify impacted loans and lines of credit, DMS went on to mention this specialized set of tri-bureau attributes addresses the number of tradelines with a modification applied, the sum of the balances of those tradelines and the corresponding monthly payments and the percentage of a consumer’s tradelines with modifications.

“As these adjustments are made to provide consumer relief, we caution lenders not to allow either their portfolio or their customers to fall victim to underestimated monthly debt,” DMS executive vice president David Graves said in a news release.  

“Our team is eager to help companies support their customers with empathy during this challenging time, while still effectively mitigating risk so they remain profitable,” Graves went on to say.