Mortgage technology

LoanPerformance, a San Francisco-based provider of residential mortgage data and analytics, has announced the release of TrueStandings Securities 2.0, a Web-based mortgage reporting and analysis application.Version 2.0 features a Java-based user interface, Internet access, and full navigation using hyperlinks, and offers clients full access to "the mortgage industry's leading nonagency mortgage-backed and asset-backed securities databases," the company said. The new version provides faster refresh rates for its Web pages, an enhanced design for a "more intuitive user experience," and improved process and workflow for building and managing customized reports, LoanPerformance said. The company, a subsidiary of First American Real Estate Solutions, can be found online at http://www.loanperformance.com.

Mortgage technology veteran Tim Anderson has joined Stewart Transaction Solutions, Houston, as vice president of business development for the lender channel.Mr. Anderson most recently served as executive vice president of business solutions for Dexma, one of the first companies to support a paperless origination process using Web services. His background also includes work with DocuTech, Ignition Mortgage Technology Solutions (a wholly owned subsidiary of Freddie Mac at the time), Alltel Information Services (now Fidelity Information Services), and HomeSide Lending (now Washington Mutual), where he ran the e-commerce division. Mr. Anderson founded the eMortgage Alliance, which supports MISMO standards for delivering legal paperless processes. "Tim's knowledge and expertise will be invaluable in leading our business development initiatives for e-mortgages and Stewart's overall vision of the paperless real estate transaction," said Travis Wright, president of Stewart Transaction Solutions. The company can be found online at http://www.stewarttransactionsolutions.com.

Ellie Mae, Dublin, Calif., has announced the formation of a partnership with ComplianceEase, Burlingame, Calif., to offer free, automatic compliance audits to mortgage brokers using Ellie Mae's Encompass Mortgage Automation System.The compliance check, which is free of charge with every loan submission to one of the 45-plus lenders available on the ePASS Network, will work to ensure that loans comply with federal regulations and state and municipal predatory-lending laws, Ellie Mae said. (The acronym stands for Electronic Processing and Submission System.) "Compliance is essential these days, so having a compliance check built into a loan origination system provides great benefits to mortgage brokers," said Jonathan Corr, Ellie Mae's chief strategy officer. The compliance check provides an easy-to-understand "pass" or "fail" designation, but originators who want additional details on loans that failed can get an instant, in-depth report for a nominal fee, Ellie Mae said. The companies can be found online at http://www.elliemae.com and http://www.complianceease.com.

Del Mar Database, a unit of Fiserv Inc. based in San Diego, and Overture Technologies, a developer of decisioning technology headquartered in Bethesda, Md., have partnered to offer product eligibility, pricing, and automated underwriting technology to small and midtier lenders.Beginning this summer, Del Mar will launch a new family of Web-based decision support products powered by Overture Technologies: PriceTrac, a product pricing and eligibility application; and DecisionTrac, an automated underwriting system. PriceTrac is a rules-based loan program eligibility engine that delivers acceptable products along with fully adjusted prices to originators based on borrower information. DecisionTrac extends the qualification determination by requiring a complete 1003 dataset, automatically pulling a credit report, allowing for liability management, and running the content through the rules engine. The result is a list of the lender's loan programs that are approved, those that are close calls, and those that are not eligible. The companies can be found on the Web at http://www.delmardb.com and http://www.overturetechnologies.com.

Freddie Mac has announced changes to its Loan Prospector automated underwriting service and its Home Possible affordable mortgage products that it says are designed to help more low- and moderate-income borrowers qualify for mortgages eligible for purchase by Freddie Mac.The government-sponsored enterprise said it expects more mortgages submitted to LP to get an "accept" response as a result of the revisions. Moreover, the GSE is waiving the LP assessment fee when a "caution" is returned on the first submission of a conforming, conventional mortgage. (Freddie said such responses are triggered by higher-risk mortgages that the GSE purchases as well as by loans that don't meet its loan purchase guidelines.) Paul Mullings, senior vice president of single-family sourcing at Freddie Mac, said the announcements "are the latest installment on the pledge we made to our lender customers to buy more of the loans they originate and give them new ways to build their market share with Loan Prospector." Freddie Mac can be found online at http://www.freddiemac.com.

Fidelity National Financial Inc., Jacksonville, Fla., and Fidelity National Information Services Inc. have announced a merger agreement under which FNF will be merged into FNIS, which will be the surviving entity.The merger agreement, previously reported as a proposal, will be consummated after the closing of a securities exchange and distribution agreement between FNF and Fidelity National Title Group Inc., FNF's majority-owned title insurance subsidiary. Under that agreement, FNF will contribute substantially all its assets and liabilities (other than its ownership interests in FNIS) to FNTG in exchange for shares of FNTG's class A common stock, the companies reported. Immediately after that exchange, FNF will convert its class B common stock of FNTG into shares of FNTG class A common stock and distribute all the class A shares as dividends to FNF stockholders. These transactions will leave FNF with an approximately 51% ownership in FNIS as its only asset prior to the merger, the companies said. William P. Foley II, FNF's chairman and chief executive officer, will become executive chairman of FNIS.

Leveraging the powerful Alterian Engine and database, Alterian has announced a partnership with the Intellidyn marketing firm to offer mortgage industry customers a "hands-on" analytics platform that lets them manage marketing campaigns onsite.Through the Alterian Marketing Suite, Intellidyn's financial services customers will be able to access data "on more than 112 million households as well as Intellidyn's proprietary derived variables, gaining deeper insights into banking, lending, and insurance segments," Alterian said. Customers will also be able to implement multichannel campaigns "straight from their desktops" while keeping their data behind secure firewalls, the company added. Intellidyn bills itself as a provider of advanced analytics and multichannel and database marketing services for customer acquisition and retention strategies in the banking, lending, and mortgage industries. Alterian, based in Bristol, U.K., can be found online at http://www.alterian.com, and Intellidyn, based in Hingham, Mass., a Boston suburb, can be found at http://www.intellidyn.com.

Standard & Poor's has started a Web-based service that provides day-end pricing for international, fixed income securities, among them European and U.S. commercial and residential mortgage-backed securities. "The traditionally opaque fixed income sector is in the midst of transformational change, brought on in part by advances in technology," said Frank Ciccotto, senior vice president at S&P. "With this Web-based offering, we underscore our commitment to helping the industry achieve new levels of efficiency and transparency." S&P can be found online at http://www.standardandpoors.com.

Ann Arbor, Mich.-based Martopia has partnered with RGC Communications to offer a new online service that helps wholesale lenders assist their brokers with marketing efforts.The two companies said their Broker Marketing Engine aims to help lenders attract and retain mortgage brokers. Michael Hammond, vice president of business strategy at Martopia, said, "The Broker Marketing Engine program enables authorized brokers to utilize a password-protected website and customize marketing materials with their colors, photos, logos, contact information and text choices." Martopia said initial selections include brochures, sell sheets and direct mail pieces that address common topics of interest to the mortgage broker's target audiences. The broker can then order printing and even upload a mailing list and request mailing services right from the website, according to Martopia. Martopia and RGC Communications plan to demonstrate their Broker Marketing Engine at the upcoming 2006 National Association of Mortgage Brokers Annual Convention. Martopia can be found on the Web at http://www.martopia.com.

Fidelity National Information Services Inc., Jacksonville, Fla., has announced the launch of eRelease Payload, an automated utility designed exclusively for the company's mortgage servicing package clients.The eRelease product line is an end-to-end lien release processing system, and the launch of eRelease Payload provides the added functionality of automated order placement into eRelease when the loan payoff transaction occurs, the company said. Using the utility to place orders eliminates the inconvenience, time delays, and risk of using multiple queries to aggregate order placement data. "Prior to Payload, our eRelease clients created their own upload files to place orders using multiple reports or manual entry of MSP data," said Clay Cornett, president of Fidelity National Default Solutions. "The process was cumbersome and increased our clients' exposure to potential penalties and litigation due to misplaced orders and incomplete files." FNIS can be found online at http://www.fidelityinfoservices.com.

Today there are far more identities of U.S. residents on record than there are actual residents -- and the bad news is that 2006 is likely to be the worst year ever for identity theft, according to a company called Edentify.The good news is that actual losses from identity theft are continuing to fall, as consumers and lenders become aware of identify theft-related fraud at earlier stages, the Bethlehem, Pa.-based company says. Edentify offers patented measures for companies and individuals to prevent identity theft, including an "identity escrow account" that enables consumers to maintain ownership of their own biometric identity verification for every financial transaction they do. Though the mortgage application is a gold mine of borrower information, the mortgage industry is better than most at protecting borrower information, an Edentify spokesman said. The company can be found online at http://www.edentify.us.

LandAmerica Financial Group Inc., Richmond, Va., has announced the acquisition of MSTD Inc., a Baltimore-based provider of Web-based technology to the mortgage servicing industry.MSTD is an application service provider whose flagship product, BackInTheBlack, combines rules-based decision engines with embedded workflows and integration of all third-party providers and services used by lenders managing delinquent loans. "Our default management clients are increasingly challenged with delinquencies and foreclosures, as well as with an increased focus on regulatory compliance and loss litigation," said Albert V. Will, executive vice president of lender services for LandAmerica. "Blending the capabilities of LandAmerica Default Services with the technology expertise and products of MSTD enables LandAmerica to offer the mortgage industry the best and most integrated servicing solution in the marketplace." LandAmerica can be found online at http://www.landam.com.

MILA, Mountlake Terrace, Wash., is introducing daily online Web training for its proprietary decisioning and loan management technology, AccessPoint.Along with the training, MILA has recently introduced co-browsing, which allows a broker to invite a MILA associate into his system to help drive the process in real time. When combined with communication tools such as live chat and e-mail, co-browsing will empower MILA's brokers to move loans even more efficiently through AccessPoint, the company said. AccessPoint has been designed as a platform that brokers and small mortgage bankers can use to manage their entire business, from marketing, product selection, and rate locks to fraud prevention, settlement service fulfillment, and document preparation. MILA can be found on the Web at http://www.mila.com.

A new player has entered the ring to vie with Calyx, Ellie Mae, Lenders Insight, LION, and others to serve brokers by automating loan qualification and lender referral.With technology coming from a successful real estate company, Highland, Calif.-based PreQualPal Inc. offers mortgage brokers and loan officers a suite of online tools that dramatically reduces the time they spend searching through rate sheets and keying in data. A key feature is simultaneous real-time rate and pricing that includes quotes from multiple lenders. Taking 17 variables in getting a quote from a lender, the system automatically arrives at an adjusted rate and compares and maximizes lender rebates. The company particularly touts its tools for building relationships with real estate agents in a shrinking mortgage market. http://www.prequalpal.com

Indecomm Global Services has signed an agreement to acquire McLean, Va.-based Mortgage Dynamics Inc., a mortgage banking management consulting and outsource services firm.The 18-year-old company was sold for a combination of cash and stock, but the financial details were not disclosed. Indecomm said it will adopt the Mortgage Dynamics brand name for its U.S. mortgage outsourcing operations. Mortgage Dynamics will continue under the leadership of Mary Bruce Batte and Dan Measell, Indecomm said. The parties said they expect to complete the transaction by June 30. Indecomm is an international business process services firm with headquarters in Bangalore, India, and operating centers in the United States.

Minneapolis-based Dexma has earned MXCompliance certification for credit request and automated underwriting services for its Web-based platforms.The MISMO eXtensible Markup Language Compliance certification validates that these services provided by Dexma to lenders and other mortgage industry players complies with MISMO standards for such transactions. Without data exchange standards, lenders must manually enter loan data into multiple systems, increasing costs, processing time, and the possibility of errors. MXCompliance certification assures lenders that services can be easily accessed and mortgage data can be exchanged quickly, eliminating the need for manual data entry or costly data conversion systems. MISMO, a nonprofit subsidiary of the Mortgage Bankers Association, develops mortgage data exchange and file specification standards for lenders and mortgage technology providers. Dexma can be found on the Web at http://www.dexma.com.

If you measure agent performance in a call center by the average time it takes to handle an inbound call, you are making a big mistake, Wells Fargo's Gary Class told attendees June 5 at the SourceMedia Business Intelligence Forum in San Francisco.Instead, the measure should be the elapsed time it takes to solve the customer's problem, he said during a session on call-center metrics. Handling inbound calls successfully can be a huge factor in determining whether you will be successful in cross-selling products such as home equity lines of credit, according to Mr. Class. Business intelligence technology such as pattern-recognition software earns its keep because the more you can predict behavior, the better you serve customers -- and thereby "earn the right to cross-sell," Mr. Class said.

Dublin, Calif.-based Ellie Mae has launched a new edition of its mortgage automation system, Encompass Professional Edition, geared toward giving mortgage brokers more marketing functionality.Encompass Professional Edition is a multi-user program that adds marketing and productivity tools beyond those included in Encompass Standard Edition. Unlike other Encompass loan origination products, the new product features a marketing campaign manager, contact synchronization with Outlook and ACT!, and a software development toolkit enabling users to develop custom applications around Encompass, Ellie Mae said. All the added features of Encompass Professional will also be rolled into Encompass Anywhere, Ellie Mae's Web-based application. The company can be found on the Web at http://www.elliemae.com.

SwiftView Inc., Portland, Ore., and Netupdate Inc., Bellevue, Wash., have partnered to enable borrowers to use SwiftView's SwiftSend InBound service to send documents to lenders electronically.A borrower who uses Netupdate's Originator Pro online point-of-sale system to apply for a loan and check loan status will now be able to securely fax or upload loan documentation directly into an eLoanFolder. "We're making electronic submission of documents to lenders very simple," explained Diane Holmstrom, Netupdate's chief executive. Within each borrower's website, borrowers can upload documents or print fax cover sheets that are bar-coded to route documents automatically into the correct eLoanFolder, she said. "Scanning documents post-closing will soon be a thing of the past for documents that can be created or received electronically," added Steve Bachelder, president of SwiftView. "Using our technology, lenders can then share documents electronically throughout the entire loan process, including underwriting, post-closing, investor delivery, and final long-term archiving." The companies can be found on the Web at http://www.swiftview.com and http://www.netupdate.com.

E*Trade Financial Corp., New York, and NeighborWorks America, Washington, D.C., have announced the launch of the "Keys to My Home" website, which offers bilingual, user-friendly information about preparing for and maintaining homeownership.Resources on the new website include "The Top 10 Questions to Ask Your Lender," a primer on home insurance, mortgage loan affordability and debt calculators, and a mortgage comparison worksheet. "Keystomyhome.org provides customized budget tables that fit the unique needs of each consumer," said Ken Wade, chief executive officer of NeighborWorks America. "This tailored approach is ... the perfect blend of technology and a human touch." The English version of the website launched June 1, and the Spanish version will be available this summer. The website is one of several education initiatives supported by E*Trade Financial and NeighborWorks America, including neighborhood computer-lab homebuyer kiosks in target minority and low- to moderate-income markets. The new site can be found online at http://www.keystomyhome.org.