Mortgage technology

Ellie Mae, a Dublin, Calif.-based provider of software and services for the mortgage industry, has released Dynamic Loan Screening, which it touts as the industry's first virtual inter-operable platform that matches loan applications with the products and services of lenders, investors, and settlement service providers.The platform automatically identifies matches between borrower data and products, services, and promotions of participating lenders, investors, and service providers as an originator enters data into Encompass, Ellie Mae's mortgage management system. "As the originator inputs loan data into Encompass, that data is continuously monitored, and when a 'match' occurs, an offer is automatically displayed on the originator's loan origination system screen," said Jonathan Corr, Ellie Mae’s chief strategy officer. "For lenders and service providers, it's like having an account executive sitting on the originator's desktop." Dynamic Loan Screening can also screen for compliance and fraud as well as prepayment and early delinquency risks. Ellie Mae can be found online at http://www.elliemae.com.

Addressing pain points currently haunting the mortgage industry, Fort Worth, Texas-based Rapid Reporting has announced major initiatives addressing fraud prevention and buybacks.Rapid Reporting has partnered with collateral valuation and fraud specialist Magellan Lender Services, San Francisco, to give mortgage lenders a complete solution that checks the validity of both borrower and collateral-related data used to evaluate and approve mortgage loan applications. Rapid Reporting will provide borrower-related verifications and Magellan will provide collateral-based verifications to deliver one-stop coverage. Rapid Reporting said it is also offering a Stated Doc Report providing additional IRS-verified information to determine whether information on stated-income loan applications is corroborated by Internal Revenue Service data. No actual numerical data are released in Rapid Reporting's Stated Doc Report, so the integrity of stated-income loans can be maintained.

In an attempt to expand further into the mid-tier, MortgageHub Inc., Conshohocken, Pa., has acquired loan origination vendor Dynatek, Livonia, Mich.The terms of the transaction were not disclosed. The acquisition comes on the heels of MortgageHub's acquisition of the London Bridge properties owned by Fair Isaac. With the Dynatek acquisition, MortgageHub says it now has 550 lender clients. The entire management staff at Dynatek will remain untouched, and the company will maintain its name, branding, and headquarters. MortgageHub said it will add additional sales people to Dynatek's staff and invest considerable research and development funds to speed up the rollout of Titanium, an update of Dynatek's core system that the company has been phasing in over the past year. Chetan Patel, executive vice president of mergers and acquisitions at ISGN Technologies, a major investor in MortgageHub, told Mortgage Wire that MortgageHub plans future acquisitions this year, with the goal of becoming a top-three technology company in the mortgage space within two years. MortgageHub can be found online at http://www.mortgagehub.com.

Interthinx, Agoura Hills, Calif., has released the results of its latest data analysis, which it says can accurately predict which loans will be nonperforming over time.The Interthinx score predicts the likelihood of foreclosure and early payment default. In this study, Interthinx configured and evaluated performance data on over two million loan application records from its database. Through an alliance with one of the top three U.S. credit bureaus, Interthinx analyzed late payments, defaults, and foreclosure data from mortgage trade lines and compared the data with previous scores and red flags for possible mortgage fraud within loan applications. Using the Interthinx scoring system, the analysis quantitatively demonstrated that loans with a low score have a much higher level of risk than loans with a high score, the company said. For example, the risk of foreclosure in the first year is 20 times higher for loans with a score in the 0-200 range than for loans with a score in the 800-1000 range. The statistical analysis was led by Derek Stanford, director of analytics for Interthinx. The company can be found on the Web at http://www.interthinx.com.

Rapid Reporting, Fort Worth, Texas, has added a Taxpayer Summary Report to its flagship IncomeChek income verification product that is designed to reduce underwriting time by auto-populating critical information for income verification.The creation of the product came in response to recent changes in the Internal Revenue Service's method of reporting borrower income data. Effective October 2006, the IRS started providing tax transcripts in a much more detailed format, making the task of locating specific income more laborious. For example, transcripts for a three-year period were previously eight pages long at the most, but now the same data are presented in roughly 20 pages. With the Taxpayer Summary Report, all the critical income data included in those transcripts is sorted and presented in a shorter, easy-to-access format, according to Rapid Reporting. In addition, because the report is customizable and in XML format, users can select critical data most applicable to their business processes and get all of it in one streamlined, easy-to-read page. The company can be found on the Web at http://www.rapidreporting.com.

MortgageFlex Systems Inc. has announced its certification by Freddie Mac as one of only six companies to offer a loan origination system interface that meets the specifications of Loan Prospector, version 4.1.Loan Prospector is Freddie Mac's Web-based automated underwriting system. MortgageFlex said its LoanQuest Residential Lending System automates all functions inherent in the loan origination process from pre-qualification to commitment to secondary marketing. The Processing and Underwriting modules include embedded interfaces to Freddie Mac's Loan Prospector and Fannie Mae's Desktop Underwriter, the company said. MortgageFlex can be found on the Web at http://www.mortgageflex.com.

Atlanta-based Street Resource Group Inc. has announced the launch of the Warehouse Information Network, which offers a loan registry alert tool to prevent fraudulent drawing of funds from multiple warehouse lines simultaneously.WIN is an independent, membership-based collaborative providing "automated risk mitigation services, shared industry information databases, and forums for the exchange of ideas on issues related to mortgage warehouse lending," the company said. According to the announcement, WIN will function as a consortium to develop mortgage warehouse lending standards and practices as well as a vehicle to communicate as a collective group with other industries (title companies, electronic mortgage suppliers, etc.) that affect the business of warehouse lending. At launch, SRG will supply the management, technology, and leadership for the Warehouse Information Network. WIN offers a loan registry alert service to detect inter-warehouse fraud.

Lenders First Choice, Simi Valley, Calif., and Calyx Software, San Jose, Calif., have announced the integration of LFC's title insurance and settlement services application into Calyx Point, which connects loan officers and processors to lenders and service providers.LFC is using the Calyx WebConnect technology, which the companies said ensures compatibility with Point and Point Data Server. "WebConnect allows brokers to launch the LFC transactional website directly from inside Point, enabling users to send and receive loan data without leaving the application," the companies said. "When the LFC application returns data to Point, the loan file to which it pertains is automatically updated, and any supporting documentation is stored with the loan file." The companies can be found online at http://www.lendersfirstchoice.com and http://www.calyxsoftware.com.

Boasting offshoring credentials for the mortgage industry going back to 2000, Global Realty Outsourcing, Blackheath Financial, and Zenta (formerly H-Cube) have announced that they are uniting under the Zenta brand to offer business process outsourcing and knowledge process outsourcing (KPO) services to the real estate and financial services industries.According to the announcement, the combined company has 5,000 employees in six locations across three continents, with many employees holding MBA degrees and chartered accountant certifications. In an earlier announcement, American Capital Strategies Ltd. said it invested $17 million in H-Cube LLC to support the acquisition of Blackheath Financial, which provides outsourced real estate analysis and consulting services to commercial mortgage-backed securities underwriters and investors. Zenta can be found on the Web at http://www.zenta.com.

After joining the Mortgage Bankers Association and starting the Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization over seven years ago, Gabe Minton is stepping down to assume the role of chief strategy officer at Mortgage Cadence, a Denver-based enterprise lending solution company.A source close to the situation confirmed that Harry Gardner will assume Mr. Minton's responsibilities at the MBA and that Dan Szparaga, who runs the commercial portion of MISMO, will now oversee the residential portion as well. Both appointments are interim, but are expected to become permanent. Mr. Minton told MortgageWire that he will miss the MBA and running MISMO, but looks forward to moving on to Mortgage Cadence and continuing to participate in MISMO as a member. "I honestly couldn't think of a better fit for me than Mortgage Cadence," he said. The company can be found on the Web at http://www.mortgagecadence.com.

Home values declined slightly on a year-over-year basis for the second consecutive quarter in the first quarter of 2007, though the Pacific Northwest is bucking the trend, according to Zillow.com, an online real estate community based in Seattle.Zillow's quarterly national home value report, which is also released in 46 metropolitan areas, found that home values fell 1.01% in the first quarter and were 0.83% lower than in the first quarter of 2006. "While numerous cities around the nation are showing actual year-over-year declines in home values, the Pacific Northwest is largely bucking that trend and, in fact, is showing double-digit appreciation in some areas," said Stan Humphries, Zillow's vice president of data and analytics. "Four of the top five highest-appreciating metropolitan areas are located in Washington state or Oregon. Conversely, the two areas with the most depreciation are on the Gulf Coast of Florida, both with double-digit depreciation." Zillow can be found online at http://www.zillow.com.

Cincinnati-based eLynx has formed a strategic partnership with MortgageDocs, a nationwide mobile notary and attorney service provider, to further facilitate the use of hybrid electronic mortgage practices.Through eLynx's automated package delivery application, lenders can electronically submit documents to MortgageDocs, which then manages the signing and notarization process. On average, a notary is assigned to an individual borrower within 30 minutes of receipt, and sometimes as quickly as one minute in highly populated locations, the companies said. The network also provides real-time performance history statistics. The companies can be found on the Web at http://www.elynx.com and http://www.mortgagedocs.com.

Rapid Reporting, Fort Worth, Texas, has announced a partnership with Calyx Software, a broker loan origination vendor based in San Jose, Calif., to help brokers detect fraud earlier in the process.Rapid Reporting said it will offer mortgage fraud detection capabilities to users of Calyx's core group of products and services, including the company's flagship loan origination application, Calyx Point. As part of the agreement, Calyx Software users will be able to interface to Rapid Reporting's Web-based IncomeChek and DirectChek tools. Through established relationships with both the Internal Revenue Service and the Social Security Administration, Rapid Reporting enables users to detect and reveal potential mortgage fraud associated with deceptive income and identity information, the company said. Rapid Reporting can be found on the Web at http://www.rapidreporting.com.

Charlotte, N.C.-based Wachovia is one of the lenders drawing high marks for its just-launched campaign to offer customers the option of closing a mortgage loan refinancing online without ever leaving their home or office.Bank customers who go to the company's website and click on "mortgage" are presented with a banner advertisement inviting them to close a loan "from any location with an Internet connection." The online service is powered by ClosingStream, a product of Fidelity National Information Services' LSI. Early indications show a third of Wachovia's refinancing and home equity borrowers choosing the e-closing option over the traditional closing process. To date, Fidelity claims 20,000 e-closings via ClosingStream, which its LSI unit touts as the first viable Web-based closing solution to be offered nationwide. Wachovia can be found online at http://www.wachovia.com.

After running origination vendor Del Mar Database, San Diego, for several years, the company's president, John Walsh, has decided to leave the company.Fiserv Lending Solutions recently acquired Del Mar and kept Mr. Walsh on as president. "Simply, the earn-out on the deal expired," Mr. Walsh told MortgageWire. "It was time for me to cut the umbilical cord. Del Mar is, and will continue to be, a very successful company, I have no doubt. I consider myself an entrepreneur, and it was the right time for me to move on." Mr. Walsh said he has no immediate plans. He told MW that Fiserv is in the process of finding a successor. Del Mar, which specializes in providing technology to small and medium-size lenders, can be found on the Web at http://www.delmardb.com.

The Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization and its Credit Reporting Workgroup have announced recommendations regarding the use of the MISMO standard for reporting reissues of credit reports to credit repositories.The MISMO Credit Reporting standard allows companies, credit bureaus, and credit repositories to exchange data regarding a borrower's credit information, the organization said. The document "will provide guidance on how to better use this standard in light of a recent change in the federal Fair Credit Report Act," said MISMO, a not-for-profit subsidiary of the Mortgage Bankers Association. Gabe Minton, executive vice president of MISMO and the MBA's vice president of industry technology, noted that credit data repositories collect and store credit data, while credit bureaus create the credit report for the lender. "This newly released document discusses how the existing MISMO Credit Request transaction format can be used to provide the information needed by credit bureaus to report additional end-users to the repositories," Mr. Minton said. MISMO can be found online at http://www.mismo.org.

Genworth Financial Inc., Raleigh, N.C., has announced the introduction of a new and interactive website designed to educate users about mortgage insurance.Genworth said SmarterMI.com features talking tour guides, video testimonials, and animated tutorials to help lenders and real estate professionals stay ahead of trends, learn from their peers, and improve their sales process. Online "webinars" are available free of charge to professionals who want to learn more about mortgage insurance, as well as easy-to-use calculators. "Our new website is a one-stop resource that explains the available alternatives and makes cost comparisons easy," said Kevin Schneider, president of Genworth's U.S. Mortgage Insurance business. "There are safe, secure mortgage options for first-time and low-downpayment buyers, and we want people to know about them." The new website can be found online at http://www.smartermi.com.

Lead-management specialist Kaleidico has reported a tripling of website traffic since the beta launch of a new Lead Marketwatch widget on its homepage that ranks lead providers in order of their conversion of leads to loan applications.The data reflect the current weekly moving average of icoSales client results. A Kaleidico representative said lenders and lead providers alike are using the site to gauge the effectiveness of mortgage lead campaigns. At MortgageWire's deadline, the widget -- which reflects the total of all leads in the icoSales system -- showed LendingTree achieving a 10.53% conversion rate with its long form, followed by Loan Web at 6.67%. Kaleidico says it integrates with every lead provider "that we determine is a viable entity," with the requirement that a provider must tally at least 100 leads in the week recorded. The company can be found online at http://www.kaleidico.com.

Encomia, a Houston-based provider of electronic mortgage technology, and Mortgage Banking Services Direct, a management consulting company based in Horseshoe Bay, Texas, have announced a partnership aimed at offering lenders greater access to e-mortgage software and consulting services."This partnership brings value and scalability to both MBSD and Encomia's customers through technology that will help them be ahead of the curve in the mortgage industry," said David Lykken, founder and president of MBSD. "For competitive lenders, our partnership provides a system for evaluating the most effective online technology and utilizing it to maximum profitability." The companies can be found on the Web at http://www.encomia.com and http://www.mbsdgroup.com.

Turkey's AkBank has become the first lender on the European continent to deploy Fair Isaac's Falcon ID anti-fraud tool, according to the Minneapolis-based company.With Turkey now an aggressive adopter of technology, AkBank takes applications over mobile phones and is initially using the solution to protect its credit card portfolios before using Falcon ID with mortgage loan applications, a Fair Isaac representative said. Falcon ID combines predictive analytics, a sophisticated authentication interview process, and multiple sources of data for validating identities. AkBank will be able to separate applications into three buckets: those that need no review for identity theft, those that have a high risk of fraud, and those that need further review. All U.S. users of Falcon ID are covered by nondisclosure agreements, the Fair Isaac representative said. The company can be found online at http://www.fairisaac.com.