Mortgage technology

Englewood, Colo.-based TeleTech Holdings Inc. and LenderLive, a Glendale, Colo.-based mortgage fulfillment provider, have entered into an exclusive partnership that brings a global delivery network to LenderLive's operations.LenderLive and TeleTech, a business process outsourcing provider of customer management and transaction-based processing systems, offer their combined services to retail and wholesale channels and mortgage conduits, allowing lenders to increase the speed and efficiency of their current processing services and converting lenders' fixed costs to variable costs. The multiyear partnership agreement includes mortgage origination, fulfillment, processing, and portfolio protection. LenderLive and TeleTech also generate integrated sales reports that span from original lead generation to close of sale. The companies can be found on the Web at http://www.teletech.com and http://www.lenderlive.com.

ComplianceEase, a San Francisco-based provider of automated compliance and risk-management systems, has been selected by ICBA Mortgage, a subsidiary of the Independent Community Bankers of America, as the Premier Value Provider for anti-predatory/high-cost lending compliance solutions.As a designated ICBA SmartLender Services Premier Value Provider, ComplianceEase offers member community banks the opportunity to automate their compliance needs by using the company’s ComplianceAnalyzer, an automated mortgage compliance application. Specifically, ComplianceAnalyzer automates regulatory compliance procedures, allowing community banks to comply with all federal, state, and municipal legislation.

Minneapolis-based Dexma has forged a new relationship with information and services provider LexisNexis U.S. that Dexma says will help its customers and those of Prime Alliance Solutions fight fraud.Through a reseller agreement with LexisNexis, Dexma and Prime Alliance will offer anti-fraud products such as InstantID and InstantID Q&A. InstantID helps lenders verify the identity of mortgage applicants and others seeking credit approval. By conducting a proprietary search against over 1,400 independent data sources and nearly four billion consumer records, the tool verifies that each data element (name, address, Social Security #, birth date, phone #, driver's license #) is authentic and associated with the individual applicant, Dexma said. It also identifies high-risk addresses such as prisons or campgrounds, disconnected phone numbers, Social Security numbers of deceased persons, anyone on a government terrorist list, and discrepancies in data elements. If the applicant fails the InstantID or triggers other "red flags," lenders can use InstantID Q&A to authenticate identity by leveraging the database of publicly available data, the company said. Dexma can be found on the Web at http://www.dexma.com.

Visionet Systems, Cranbury, N.J., has launched VisiHCLAS, a high-cost predatory-lending analysis and remediation tool for lenders and servicers.VisiHCLAS helps mortgage companies manage and monitor situations where a high-risk loan warrants additional charges. The system allows users to evaluate fees and interest rates against the statutory limits set by high-cost loan regulations by focusing on three types of rules: channel/broker/area-specific rules, corporate guidelines and interpretation of statutory rules, and base/HOEPA/section 32 and state rules. VisiHCLAS works on an exception-management-based workflow system and allows the user to customize and select rules without IT's involvement. VisiHCLAS also enables users to specify loan numbers to be set up for review within VisiHCLAS, and the system in return pulls in the loan data and fee information from VisiHCLAS for the specified loans and sets up the loan analysis tasks in the system. The company can be found on the Web at http://www.visionetsystems.com.

San Jose, Calif.-based wholesaler LoanCity is poised to announce the release of AU 2.0, a proprietary automated underwriting system that delivers recommendations and stipulations in the same format and time frame as Fannie Mae's Desktop Underwriter.The benefit Loan City claims for brokers is that they can underwrite everything but hardcore subprime loans without exiting one AU system to run loans through another. The company calls AU 2.0 "the next generation of automated decisioning," because it lets mortgage brokers upload files in three clicks and receive firm decisions "almost instantly." The company offers group loan programs in seven broad product bands: conforming, jumbo, expanded, alternative-A, alternative-B, FHA/VA, and seconds. Within each band, there are wide ranges of credit, property, underwriting, and documentation options. The company can be found online at http://www.loancity.com.

Fannie Mae has loosened its mortgage approval standards for lower-income borrowers as it strives to meet its government-mandated affordable housing goals.Starting April 23, Fannie's automated underwriting system will approve more home purchase loans for borrowers with incomes of 100% (or less) of the area median income. This enhancement to Desktop Underwriter applies to most single-family loans, including Fannie's expanded approval loans. "It is important to note that DU will apply the same risk assessment as it does today (we are not changing the way DU analyzes risk for these loans); instead, we are changing (improving) the underwriting recommendation when the loan is identified by DU as meeting criteria for our regulatory housing goals to serve low- and moderate-income borrowers," Fannie says in a note to lenders. Fannie and Freddie Mac face incrementally higher affordable housing goals through 2008, and the Department Housing and Urban Development has made the goals more challenging by creating home purchase subgoals. Fannie has disclosed that it fell short in meeting two of the three subgoals in 2005.

Loan origination vendor Dynatek Inc., Livonia, Mich., has been certified for automated underwriting systems by the Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization.The AUS certification is only weeks old, and Dynatek is the first company to receive AUS certification under the MISMO MXCompliance Program. Specifically, Dynatek's MORvision was certified for AUS version 2.3.1. Since launching the MISMO eXtensible Markup Language Compliance program (dubbed MXCompliance) for the credit reporting transaction last spring, MISMO has rolled out requirements for mortgage insurance application transactions and now AUS transactions. Dynatek was one of the first to earn certification for credit in October 2005, followed by MI in January 2006. Dynatek can be found on the Web at http://www.dynatek.com.

Stewart Mortgage Information, Houston, has launched Collateral Profile, an alternative real valuation product available through e-Title, SMI's national vendor management company.The new valuation tool uses the expertise of local real estate professionals in conjunction with online data sources to render a valuation. "The product analyzes data from three comparable data sources and generates a desktop report providing basic information on the subject property, including neighborhood conditions, and also provides a value range for the subject property," said Kevin Gugenheim, SMI's president and chief operating officer. E-Title offers settlement services to lenders, including insured and uninsured title products, centralized closing and settlement solutions, and automated and traditional valuation products. SMI can be found online at http://smi.stewart.com.

ATM Corp., a Pittsburgh-based provider of settlement solutions, has joined forces with Equifax to launch a national settlement services company. The companies said that Equifax Settlement Services will provide a complete set of mortgage settlement offerings, including title, closing and appraisal services. "The introduction of Equifax Settlement Services enables us to provide a centralized resource to meet the growing settlement needs of our mortgage lending customers," said Dann Adams, group executive, Equifax North America Information Services. "This new venture is an important step in establishing Equifax's comprehensive suite of end-to-end mortgage solutions." ATM Corporation is the holding company for Vision Global Solutions, which helps lenders build settlement service subsidiaries.

The mortgage lenders that will stay in business are those spending on tech right now, said MBA chief economist Doug Duncan at a press briefing at the MBA tech conference now underway in San Diego.While the cost per loan spent on production technology rose year over year from an estimated $99 for 2004 to $119 for 2005, he said the smart companies are choosing to reinvest in technology between the end of the refinancing boom and the time when declining loan volumes put the brakes on new technology projects. The MBA MISMO e-mortgage group announced several new releases, including an e-mortgage closing guide, and an e-closing cost benefit analysis white paper showing how to calculate the ROI for e-closings. Responding to growing concerns over security, MISMO also issued a white paper on data security.

GMAC Residential Funding, Minneapolis, has launched an enhanced version of its Assetwise Compliance Engine.The latest version has been integrated with ComplianceAnalyzer, a compliance tool developed by ComplianceEase, a Bay Area-based company. GMAC Residential Funding lending partners that use ComplianceEase will be able to access the Assetwise Compliance engine as part of their ComplianceEase subscription. ComplianceEase users will now be given an option to receive a free Assetwise Compliance Engine findings report. The complimentary report will indicate if the loan may be eligible for purchase by GMAC Residential Funding. "Our partnership with GMAC Residential Funding has empowered mortgage lenders with an effective tool with which to determine loan compliance," said Dave Girling, executive vice president of ComplianceEase. "Our integrated compliance solution was developed to specifically address the needs of mortgage lenders by making the loan origination process more efficient, and by helping to increase profitability in an increasingly competitive market." For more information about ComplianceEase, visit http://www.ComplianceEase.com, while the website for the parent of GMAC Residential Funding, Residential Capital Corp. is located at https://www.rescapholdings.com.

Synergistic Technologies, MRG Document Technologies and World Wide Notary formed an alliance by which the three companies will jointly offer mortgage lenders an end-to-end e-mortgage solution.At the MBA tech show the companies said that they will combine their respective solutions and expertise in document preparation and delivery, document imaging and management and electronic signatures to streamline paper-based loan processes for mortgage lenders while providing them with a flexible, iterative e-mortgage migration strategy that includes automated loan processing workflow, online document sharing, secure, hosted document management, and electronic signing.

At the MBA tech show, Fiserv noted that both its easyLENDER and UniFi PRO loan origination systems have received certification for credit reporting and mortgage insurance application through the MXCompliance service, an eXtensible Markup Language-based compliance process developed by MISMO.MISMO, a not-for-profit subsidiary of the Mortgage Bankers Association, develops mortgage data-exchange and file-specification standards for lenders and mortgage technology providers. This move signals that Fiserv, one of the largest technology vendors in the mortgage space, is making efforts to endorse industry standards within their products to make it easier for users to integrate with other products and services. Other MISMO certifications are forthcoming including automated underwriting and e-mortgage certifications.

In more news from the MBA Tech Show, Calyx Software has embarked on a strategic mission to both support the MISMO standards and become a more fully integrated solution.Through the release of four products, DirectConnect, WebConnect, Loan Bridge and Point SDK, Point users will be able to use Point in a variety of ways to integrate other software solutions, connect to lenders and order various settlement services. The most recent of the three products, Point SDK, which will be released in June, is in direct response to the industry's need to integrate with various third-party solutions and providers. This new product will allow Point users to use a common SDK to create more seamless integrations. Vendors can also purchase the SDK, but it can only be used in conjunction with a Point owner's SDK.

An army of Freddie Mac-ers is scouring the vendor halls at the Mortgage Bankers Association's National Technology in Mortgage Banking Conference now underway in San Diego.Freddie is using the conference to pursue its new strategy of meeting its technology needs with out-of-the-box products. Pegging this "sea change" to its previous policy of building in-house, Freddie Mac officials said this new initiative would be matched by an effort to broaden its search for new technology personnel beyond the Beltway to markets such as Chicago, where it already has regional offices. Freddie tied the new initiative to its embrace of e-mortgages and service-oriented architecture. The company's website is http://www.freddiemac.com.

INREEX, formally the International Real Estate Exchange, announced that its stock has begun trading as a Pink Sheet issue under the symbol IRXI.INNREEX, based in London, describes itself as a real estate prediction exchange to meet the needs of global real estate investors. "Our goal as a company is to efficiently create an online real estate speculation exchange," said Paul Rozenberg, CEO of the company. He said the system is designed to be as close as possible to stock market trading. The electronic exchange trades contracts of all 50 U.S. states as well as a USA contract reminiscent of a stock index. The contracts are based on official home price index data published by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight. The company's trading technology allows investors to log in from anywhere in the world and buy, sell or short housing markets in the U.S.

Responding to widespread interest in technology that improves the correspondent-investor transaction, Irvine, Calif.-based Commerce Velocity has announced the launch of a correspondent module that enables lenders to accept and then automatically decision and price loans submitted in flow, batch, or bulk mode.The module lets lenders offer their sellers customized portal views featuring simultaneous side-by-side spot, commitment, and bulk pricing capability. The module's customizable pipeline views highlight "next step" activities for each unique role/user, and allow lenders to monitor activity for correspondents, investors, and third-party service providers. Commerce Velocity said an unnamed Wall Street conduit will be implementing the system this spring, with another lender scheduled to implement in June. The company will be demonstrating the module at the MBA Technology Conference March 29-31 in San Diego. It can be found online at http://www.cvelocity.com.

International Document Services Inc., Salt Lake City, and Byte Software, Kirkland, Wash., have announced an alliance that offers mortgage professionals new options for legally compliant closing documents.The partnership creates "a seamless interface" between the idsDoc closing system and the BytePro loan origination system, the companies said. IDS president Curt Doman said the interface "will give Byte's customers a fully customizable document system, providing more time to originate loans." The companies can be found on the Web at http://www.idsdoc.com and http://www.byte-cbc.com.

Jacksonville, Fla.-based Fidelity National Real Estate Solutions has deployed NeighborhoodHomeSales.com, a Web-based lead generation product.The tool is powered by Fidelity's proprietary property database, which contains over 120 million real estate property records nationwide. The product is designed to enable real estate professionals to put a home evaluation link on their website to provide their customers with automatic valuations from NeighborhoodHomeSales.com. Fidelity said it believes that the service will increase Web traffic to Realtors' and brokers' websites so they can determine whether visitors are in the market to buy or sell a home. The leads received from this service can automatically populate into Fidelity's ManagementCenter product to increase pull-through. Fidelity can be found on the Web at http://www.fnf.com.

Fidelity National Real Estate Solutions, a division of Fidelity National Information Services Inc., has announced an agreement with RE FormsNet LLC to facilitate direct integrations between Fidelity's transaction management technology and RE FormsNet's ZipForm and WINForms real estate form applications.Fidelity said the integration will allow real estate professionals to minimize key strokes by transferring or copying data from their listing or sales contract form to Fidelity's TransactionPoint transaction management platform, where key transaction-related events and documents may be created and tracked. The integration will facilitate the seamless flow of information and enhance customer service levels and communication, Fidelity said. RE FormsNet is a joint venture between the National Association of Realtors and Real Estate Business Services Inc., a subsidiary of the California Association of Realtors.