Banking

Black Knight’s product is designed to assist mortgage lenders in performing due diligence while also preventing heightened risk of foreclosure losses.

Amerant Mortgage includes several former bankers from City National Bank of Florida in Miami.

The firm will invest in loans in health care, real estate, equipment and transportation, as well as corporate sectors backed by contractual cash flows, according to a statement Tuesday.

The auto finance company, which had stumbled in forays into the credit card business, is now seeing rapid growth in mortgage and unsecured consumer lending.

The uptick follows the pandemic-era trend of midmonth increases in active plans, according to Black Knight.

The investments, part of a post-merger effort to wring out more profits, include new commercial and mortgage lending platforms.

The acquisition brings the credit report provider into the commercial and residential appraisal technology space.

Commercial real estate portfolios have held up better than expected during the pandemic. But rising delinquencies and fears of a delayed economic recovery are renewing questions about credit quality.

While distressed mortgage rates continued the fall’s short-term slide, serious delinquencies are three times higher than the year-ago total, according to CoreLogic.

Fitch and Trepp reported that overall commercial mortgage-backed security delinquencies were down, while the MBA reported a slight increase.