Liquidity pressure, secondary execution demands and servicing complexity are accelerating the shift to digital collateral.
For years, electronic promissory notes occupied an awkward middle ground in mortgage lending. The concept was sound, the infrastructure was in place, and early adopters demonstrated that the model could work. Yet adoption remained uneven, often stalled by questions about investor acceptance, warehouse lender readiness and operational complexity.
That hesitation is becoming harder to justify.
What has changed is not simply technology, but the market’s tolerance for inefficiency. As funding timelines compress, margins tighten and secondary execution becomes increasingly time-sensitive, lenders are reevaluating where friction still exists in their processes. Increasingly, the promissory note itself is part of that conversation.
Recent industry data suggests eNotes are no longer a niche execution strategy. They are becoming a practical response to liquidity pressure.
Adoption signals are no longer ambiguous
ICE Mortgage Technology reported that eNotes reached a record 12.86% share of all mortgages registered on the MERS System in October 2025, with more than 2.8 million eNotes registered to date. That milestone matters not because it represents saturation, but because it reflects sustained, measurable growth in live production, not pilot programs. Lenders that move fully digital rarely revert back, and each incremental gain compounds downstream.
Even among lenders that have not yet implemented eNotes, intent is shifting. Fannie Mae survey data shows that while only about one in five lenders currently use eNotes, nearly two-thirds expect to adopt them within the next two years. The primary barrier cited is no longer internal resistance or borrower readiness, but uncertainty around partner and investor acceptance. That distinction matters. It suggests the debate has moved from “should we do this” to “how do we align the ecosystem.”
That alignment challenge is real, but it is narrowing. Agency acceptance is established. Ginnie Mae’s Digital Collateral Program continues to mature.. Most recently, Ginnie Mae announced that eNote-backed MBS will be eligible for PIIT transfers under the agency’s Co-Issue program—an operational change that supports greater flexibility at issuance while maintaining program oversight. Effective for issuances dated February 1, 2026 and thereafter, PIIT transfers may contain eNote collateral, and Ginnie Mae reports more than $102 billion in outstanding Ginnie Mae MBS are now backed by eNotes, supported by 47 approved eIssuers.
Full-year data from Ginnie Mae shows eNote growth of more than 300% from 2021 to 2022, followed by increases of 87% in 2023 and 67% in 2024. The deceleration reflects normalization rather than slowdown, signaling a shift from early experimentation to sustained production. While investor requirements are not uniform, they are increasingly documented and predictable. For lenders willing to map acceptance criteria and standardize delivery practices, the path forward is clearer than it was even a few years ago.
The economics behind the momentum
At the same time, leading lenders are demonstrating what scaled adoption looks like in practice. Some institutions now deliver the majority of their agency volume as eNotes, signaling that digital collateral can function as a default execution model rather than an exception. Those lenders are not chasing novelty. They are chasing certainty.
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