Mortgage technology

Freddie Mac has announced that it will change Loan Prospector to give lenders greater certainty on pricing for A-minus and Caution loans.The changes will enable lenders to use the Loan Prospector Level returned on the Loan Prospector Feedback Certificate to determine their A-minus fees, since the Loan Prospector Level is identical to the fee rate used to calculate the A-minus post-settlement delivery fee that will appear on the monthly invoice, according to Freddie. In addition, the new post-delivery A-minus fee assessment process will cut the time lenders spend reconciling fees for loans sold to Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored enterprise said. The changes are scheduled to take effect May 1.

Freddie Mac and VMP Mortgage Solutions Inc., a Bankers Systems Inc. company, have formed a joint initiative designed to provide mortgage lenders with tools that develop bilingual, state-specific security instruments, notes, and other mortgage documents in English and Spanish.The initiative will also provide bilingual consumer education brochures that address the mortgage process. The companies said the documents will include a primer on the importance of credit and flow into a series of bilingual brochures that explain the lending process. The educational materials will be based on content from Freddie Mac's CreditSmart Español consumer financial literacy curriculum. The materials will be provided by VMP to lenders and by Freddie Mac to community organizations. The materials will also address common misconceptions about banking and homeownership, as well as help consumers better understand their rights and responsibilities, the companies said. The forms will be available in both printed and electronic formats. The companies can be found on the Web at http://www.freddiemac.com and http://www.vmpmtg.com.

The Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization has announced plans to develop a multiservice response that would make it easier to bundle existing standards in one transaction and separate plans to release a way to test e-mortgage standards.Both initiatives are expected to be delivered to market by MISMO by the end of the year, according to Gabe Minton, vice president of industry technology at the Mortgage Bankers Association, MISMO's parent organization. Under the MultiService Request/Response delivery, the user would be able to seamlessly integrate the MISMO standards without having to cross-check for every sector of the process. A more basic compliance tool to test the actual datasets is expected at the MBA Tech Show this March, with the more complicated e-mortgage compliance tool to come by the end of the year, Mr. Minton told the Fourth Annual NHEMA E-Commerce Roundtable in Costa Mesa, Calif. NHEMA -- the National Home Equity Mortgage Association -- can be found online at http://www.nhema.org.

ABN Amro Mortgage Group, Ann Arbor, Mich., has announced that Ford Motor Co. now offers a private-label version of AAMG's Mortgage.com to its employees.Under the arrangement with AAMG's National Lending Center Affinity and Relocation Lending division, Ford employees can access various mortgage lending products and services at a discount through Ford's Intranet, including AAMG's guaranteed OneFeemortgage. OneFee guarantees, at the time the loan's interest rate is locked, all the typical lender-related fees associated with obtaining a mortgage loan, AAMG said.

Fidelity National Financial Inc., Jacksonville, Fla., has announced the addition of new reporting capabilities and a search feature to its BuyBankHomes.com Web portal on foreclosed properties.The new reporting capabilities enable financial institutions to obtain information on their listed properties, including the number of times a property has been displayed or e-mailed to an interested party. The search feature allows brokers to locate properties that have not been distributed to other brokers or agents, FNF said. The portal can be found at http://www.buybankhomes.com.

CreditXpert Inc., a credit analysis and management provider based in Towson, Md., launched a tool for finding inaccuracies in credit files and giving the user the ability to act on them.Specifically, CreditXpert Detective scans an individual's credit data to reveal potential inaccuracies and recommends specific updates that will most significantly improve the person's credit score. It also automatically generates customized instructions and dispute letters. Using the tool's recommendations and guidance, users can uncover their credit scores. CreditXpert Inc. can be found on the Web at http://www.creditxpert.com.

Bank of America is closing its private-label residential outsourcing unit, Financial Services Solutions, a joint venture operation that is partly owned by title insurance giant Fidelity National Financial.FSS president Greg Sullins told MortgageWire that, "our first task will be to shut down and take care of our one client." FSS employs about 400 and has offices in California, Kentucky, New York and North Carolina. Mr. Sullins said Bank of America has made a decision "to focus on its core business," noting that the decline in conventional residential production was a key factor in the move. (Loan volumes continue to be healthy in the non-conforming market but BoA exited that business several years ago.) FSS was launched in April 2003 during the height of the production boom. The biggest players in private-label outsourcing niche include PHH Mortgage, Countrywide and Nexstar Financial.

The Mortgage Bankers Association plans to release a commercial version of the data set standards used in the residential market to facilitate the transfer of information between the various players in the lending transaction.Speaking at the group's Commercial Real Estate Finance/Multifamily Housing Conference in San Diego, Chairman Michael Petrie said the MISMO-like platform would allow commercial lenders and their trading partners to swap information using consistent definitions. It will save money by reducing the need for repeated manual input, increasing reporting accuracy and bolstering investor conference, Mr. Petrie told the conference's opening session. He also told the meeting that the commercial sector must be more vigilant than ever. "We've never before been subject to so much regulation," he said. To make sure the industry's voice is heard, the MBA intends to boost its grassroots, Web-based Capital Assets program to 10,000 members and fatten its political action committee to the tune of $1.3 million. About 4,500 people are registered for the meeting, "the largest number (of commercial real estate executives) assembled in one place at one time," according to MBA President Jonathan Kempner.

GMAC Bank Wholesale Lending, Horsham, Pa., has introduced an enhanced version of Link to Lender, a joint effort with Fannie Mae that it says "significantly streamlines" the loan submission and registration process for brokers and correspondents who select GMAC Bank as the sponsoring lender when they use Fannie's Desktop Originator.Link to Lender is a new DO feature that enables one-click transfer of data, eliminating the need for importing, exporting, or re-keying data from DO into the wholesale lender's website, GMAC said. With the updated version of DO, GMAC will receive immediate electronic notification of an automated underwriting submission and automatically register or update the loan record on its system. "Link to Lender corrects what was a fragmented process for brokers and correspondents," said Matthew Detwiler, vice president of wholesale lending for GMAC Bank. "It strengthens an already powerful tool by letting DO be the single point of entry for a complete loan registration process."

Los Angeles-based CarsDirect has acquired several mortgage website properties from Myers Internet Inc.The terms of the transaction were not disclosed. As part of the agreement, CarsDirect acquires Myers' mortgage lead technology platform and its consumer brands BestRate.com and LoanApp.com. The acquisition was designed to accelerate the growth of CarsDirect's mortgage business and complement its current consumer-facing mortgage websites -- LoanStore.com and CheckInterestRates.com, the company said. Myers can be found on the Web at http://www.myers.com.

AllRegs, an Eagan, Minn.-based online publisher of reference information for the mortgage industry, has announced the introduction of the Practical Guide to FHA Lending.Written by Alice Alvey, John Gehrke, & Jan Wetzel of Mortgage U, the online Practical Guide is a comprehensive "how-to" source book that is updated continually and organized to mirror the mortgage process, the company said. It features exclusive worksheets, tables, checklists, and "best practices" for guidance on common procedures and accepted standards, according to AllRegs. AllRegs is the official electronic publisher of the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Single and Multifamily Seller/Servicer Guides and the Federal Home Loan Banks' MPF Program Guidelines.

"It's the data, dummy," said Countrywide executive vice president Omer Simeon in introducing a live demonstration of the company's Web-based DIDO (data in, document out) system during Monday's keynote address at the Thomson Media Mortgage Technology Conference in Miami.The message was that paper capture processes will be a reality for some time, though electronic mortgages are the goal. In the meantime, the electronic processes will continue to mimic paper processes as lenders accustom themselves to the change, Mr. Simeon said. While supporting the process established by the Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization, he said Countrywide will continue to develop its own proprietary use of Extensible Markup Language for internal uses and convert to MISMO standards to communicate with the outside world.

Fiserv, Brookfield, Wis., has reported net income of $377.6 million ($1.91 per share) for 2004, up from $315.0 million ($1.61 per share) in 2003.Fiserv's processing and services revenues came in at $3.35 billion for the year, a 29% increase from $2.59 billion in 2003. For the fourth quarter, Fiserv reported net income of $97.5 million ($0.49 per share), up from $82.0 million ($0.42 per share) a year earlier. Fiserv can be found on the Web at http://www.fiserv.com.

Jersey City, N.J.-based ISO has acquired AppIntelligence, a provider of Web-based analytic tools designed to identify and detect fraud in the residential mortgage industry.The terms of the deal were not disclosed. ISO is a provider of products and services that help measure, manage, and reduce risk. It provides data, analytics, and decision-support systems to professionals in many fields, including insurance, finance, real estate, health services, government, and human resources. AppIntelligence, Weldon Spring, Mo., has over 600 mortgage customers, the company says, and its products are designed to target the prequalification, processing, underwriting, quality control/quality assurance, and compliance phases of the mortgage-lending process. The companies can be found on the Web at http://www.iso.com and http://www.appintelligence.com.

Fidelity National Financial Inc., Jacksonville, Fla., has announced an agreement with RealEC Technologies Inc., Santa Ana, Calif., to develop a new tool for its title agencies.The tool, FNF.net, will deploy three technology components from RealEC, an e-commerce exchange for real estate transactions: the RealEC Exchange, iSelect, and iBundle. FNF said the technologies will be customized to enable title agencies to create bundles of services -- such as appraisal, credit, automated valuation models, and flood -- that can be offered through agency-branded Web portals for use by Realtors and lenders. Jason Nadeau, RealEC's chief information officer, said FNF.net will be a one-stop-shop for Fidelity agencies to review vendors, define guidelines for selecting vendors, and create bundles of services. "For each transaction, users simply log on and select their bundle preference, such as a home equity bundle, resale bundle, or construction bundle," Mr. Nadeau said. "From there, the system automatically orders the various services defined for that bundle." RealEC, a majority-owned subsidiary of FNF, can be found online at http://www.realec.com, and FNF can be found at http://www.fnf.com.

Cleveland-based Hyland Software, which offers the OnBase enterprise content management suite, has joined the eMortgage Alliance.Hyland's OnBase for Mortgage Lending enables paperless loans. The alliance is a consortium of companies that promotes standards-based electronic mortgage technologies, processes, and implementations based on standards promulgated by the Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization. Further information on Hyland's OnBase can be found on the Web at http://www.onbase.com.

Data Tree LLC, a San Diego-based provider of recorded property document images, has announced the launch of DocEdge.com, which offers instant, around-the-clock access to the company's imaged document database.Data Tree said the product is "ideal for mortgage servicers, real estate attorneys, land surveyors, abstractors, and others" seeking access to land record documents on residential, commercial, and other types of real property. Users can obtain copies of mortgages, deeds, assignments, transfers, assessor maps, and reports such as property detail, sales comparables, and legal and vesting information, the company said. "DocEdge.com delivers the Data Tree database to an entirely new type of customer," said Robert Karraa, Data Tree's chief operating officer. "We've created a Web-based solution with advanced, multiple search capabilities and combined it with nationwide database access." The company can be found online at http://www.datatree.com, and the new product can be found at http://www.docedge.com.

Fitch Ratings has launched a new structured finance analytical tool designed to enable users to better tailor their own market research.Bond Compare, a Web-based tool using Fitch's structured finance database, is aimed at allowing investors to analyze and compare bond performance within a specific structured finance sector, Fitch said. It is available for all major sectors, including residential mortgage-backed securities, commercial MBS, and collateralized debt obligations. Jayme Laurash, a Fitch managing director, said the tool is the first of many structured finance tool enhancements Fitch plans to release over the coming year. Fitch can be found online at http://www.fitchratings.com.

The First American Corp., Dallas, has promoted Chris Leavell to the position of chief operating officer for the company's Mortgage Information Services Group, and Anthony Merlo will become the new president of eAppraiseIT, taking the post vacated by Mr. Leavell.Mr. Leavell will now assume responsibility for MISG's enterprise initiatives, international expansion, and product bundling programs. In addition, he will have direct operating responsibility for various MISG companies. Mr. Merlo will now oversee eAppraiseIT's continued growth in the property valuation market. He joined eAppraiseIT in July 2000 as a vice president of sales for the Eastern Region.

Wells Fargo has launched an improved website for brokers to interface with Wells, giving them the freedom to tap into various resources.For example, the system's online mutual fund center gives brokers the power to tailor investment decisions to their customers' needs with search tools that allow for comparison shopping of over 7,000 funds. In addition, Wells reported that the site can be customized so brokers can view their entire pipeline. Each loan on the site also has a designated Wells Fargo financial adviser that can update the loan information around the clock.