For more than two decades, Global Exchange Development Corporation built its business around creating opportunities for vacation ownership buyers. But every completed sale set a larger operational process in motion.
From signed agreement to completed loan, each transaction required coordination across teams, handoffs between locations, and careful management of documentation and collateral.
As GEDC grew, President Rick Sargent saw an opportunity to transform a process that had supported the business for years and prepare it for what came next.
For nearly 20 years, GEDC relied on a process built around physical documentation and personal handoffs.
Completed contracts left the sales floor and moved through GEDC’s operation in a fixed sequence. From sales locations, documents were sent to the corporate office, then routed to escrow in Florida, and ultimately delivered to lenders responsible for holding the collateral.
At each stage, the file itself was the asset. Paperwork moved between teams and locations along a defined path connecting origination to long-term storage.
Once the loan reached the lender, physical collateral was stored for the duration of its term, often five, seven, or even ten years. In many cases, lenders maintained dedicated rooms built specifically to house the volume.
“I’ve been in those rooms,” Rick said. “It’s just massive. How do you find a file there?”
The system supported years of growth and provided a stable structure for moving loans from sale to servicing. But as volume increased, it required more movement, coordination, and oversight to keep each file on track.
The cost of moving loans through GEDC’s operation was built into how the business functioned. As volume increased, that cost became harder to ignore.
“We were spending almost $10,000 a month on FedEx just sending our contracts from the sites to corporate, from corporate to Florida, and then from Florida to the lenders,” Rick said.
That figure only captured outbound movement. When loans paid off, documents moved back through the same system so borrowers could receive final records.
“It wasn’t a one-time thing,” Rick said. “It just kept going.”
What had once been a predictable expense became increasingly difficult to justify as the pattern repeated at scale.
GEDC understood where the industry was heading. Electronic documentation and digital vaulting were becoming standard across lending operations. The challenge was aligning that shift with a process still built around in-person sales and physical document flow.
For nearly two years, Rick explored different approaches, looking for a way to modernize the system without disrupting how GEDC already operated.
When broader market conditions slowed, GEDC found itself with an opportunity it rarely had during periods of growth: the chance to step back and reassess how its loan process actually operated.
The physical system behind each transaction had remained largely unchanged for years. Contracts still moved through established channels, and collateral still followed the same path from origination to long-term storage.
With less pressure from volume, Rick and his team began evaluating where the process could evolve without disrupting day-to-day operations. That shift created space to rethink how those workflows could be supported in a more modern operating environment.
GEDC’s modernization began at the point of signature. The company adopted electronic documentation tools, including DocuSign and eOriginal, as lenders moved toward digital requirements. But implementing them inside an in-person sales model required adjustment.
Buyers were not signing remotely. They were sitting in front of sales teams at the point of sale. To bridge that gap, GEDC introduced a verification step that allowed buyers to confirm identity on-site before completing the signing process.
“We ping them with a code and then they have to put the code in as they’re sitting in front of us,” Rick said. “It proves that they are who they are.”
From there, GEDC built structure around intake and data accuracy. A custom iPad-based system allowed sales teams to pull preloaded client information directly into the closing workflow, reducing manual entry errors and standardizing deal setup.
“We find their name, everything populates, and the deal is essentially ready to go,” Rick said.
The result was a more controlled front end, with fewer errors and less downstream correction.
But even with those improvements in place, one part of the process still sat outside the system: loan document custody and long-term management of loan collateral after closing.
Even after electronic documentation and digital intake were in place, GEDC still needed a way to manage collateral after loans closed.
Because GEDC was already working with Concord on servicing, extending that relationship into eVault capabilities brought that final layer into the same system. The vaulting solution connected directly into GEDC’s existing workflow, linking origination, documentation, and long-term storage into a single continuous structure.
For the first time, GEDC had the full lifecycle of its loans operating within one coordinated system. From signing through vaulting to lender distribution and payoff, the entire workflow moved digitally.
The change removed the physical friction that once defined the back end of the process. FedEx shipments, collateral rooms, and manual handoffs no longer existed in the workflow.
“It saved us a huge amount of money, an incredible amount of time, and an incredible amount of energy,” Rick said.
GEDC has operated on this structure for four to five years without disruption to day-to-day operations.
“It runs like clockwork now,” Rick said.
As GEDC grows, each transaction continues to move through the same coordinated system from origination through servicing and long-term collateral management.
What once represented a recurring operational cost, and constant physical movement has been removed from the workflow entirely.
What began as a $10,000-a-month operational problem has become part of GEDC’s core infrastructure, supporting each new transaction as the business continues to scale.
Managing loan collateral at scale introduces real operational complexity over time. Concord supports lenders and originators with a software and servicing foundation designed to keep that complexity contained as portfolios grow.
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