Mortgage technology

Fair Isaac Corp., San Rafael, Calif., has introduced what it's calling the first service to help consumers find the best loan rates based on the FICO Credit Score, which can be accessed through the company's website free of charge.The service, called Loan Center, allows the customer to compare national and local lenders' rates in their area who have FICO credit scores similar to their own. Specifically, visitors see a comparison of interest rates offered by participating lenders for five different mortgage products, all matched to the customer's FICO score or suggested score range. The initial lineup of participating lenders includes Countrywide Home Loans, E-Loan, E-Trade Mortgage, IndyMac Bank, and Pricelinemortgage. FICO scores can be accessed via the company's website at http://www.myfico.com.

Zenodata Corp., Louisville, Colo., has released Land Record System, a system the company is dubbing the fastest automated chain-of-title search technology in the industry.According to Zenodata, LRS decreases the amount of time to perform complete title searches by a factor of 5-10, completing most title searches -- and generating completed abstract sheets -- in 10 minutes or less. Users save an average of 20%-30% on the cost of title work, the company said. "The LRS produces full title abstracts and other land record reports faster and more accurately than any other system," says Mark Stevenson, Zenodata's chief executive officer. "Unlike traditional title plants and systems that simply provide a front end for existing data sources, this system goes beyond grantor/grantee and tract indices to extract and import all relevant information from the original source documents." Zenodata develops and markets technology that automates the searching and analysis of land record data for the real estate and lending industries. The company can be found on the Web at http://www.zenodata.com.

Trinity Inspection Services Inc., Addison, Texas, has announced the launch of same-day turnaround services for new-construction inspections and draws following a period of pre-launch beta-testing with lenders.The company said its Same Day Disbursement Draw services for residential new-construction lenders will cut processing time to hours instead of days, improve loan processing efficiency and volume, and help builders stay on schedule. The system is based on Trinity's proprietary order-tracking technology. Trinity's Fee Panel of more than 2,300 inspectors provides service coverage in all 50 states. The company can be found on the Web at http://www.trinityinspection.com.

BridgeSpan Inc., Frisco, Texas, and its subsidiary BridgeSpan Title Co., have announced that they are "soliciting proposals for the purchase of their respective assets and operations," in whole or in part, in the wake of their Jan. 26 filing of Chapter 11 bankruptcy petitions.BridgeSpan and BridgeSpan Title said they "intend to select, and proceed to seek court approval of the best offer or offers received," based on a review of written offers received by Feb. 20. Offers may be tendered to BridgeSpan chief financial officer Lynelle Dahn, the announcement said -- with all assets, including BridgeSpan Title stock, to be sold to the highest bidder upon approval of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in San Jose, Calif., and (in the case of BridgeSpan Title) the California Department of Insurance.

Continuing its full-court press for dominance in broker point-of-sale systems, Ellie Mae has reported hiring away top sales executive Robert Madsen from Calyx Software.According to Ellie Mae, Mr. Madsen added over 12,000 Calyx Point licensees during his tenure at Calyx. He will head new-customer acquisition efforts for Ellie Mae's Encompass platform, which specifically targets the recruiting of Point users. Mr. Madsen has more than 25 years of senior sales and training management experience, 12 of them at Calyx, according to the company. Encompass was introduced in October 2003 as an enterprise-level Web-based alternative to existing broker POS systems. Ellie Mae can be found online at http://www.elliemae.com.

Pacific Security Capital, a real estate investment bank headquartered in Portland, Ore., has signed a multiyear exclusive agreement with GlobeSt.com, a commercial real estate news and information portal on the Internet."The ability to align ourselves with the No. 1 provider of news and information on commercial real estate gives us an incredible advantage by extending our daily market reach," said Mike Myatt, president of Pacific Security Capital. The companies can be found on the Web at http://www.pacificsecuritycapital.com and http://www.globest.com.

Laguna Hills, Calif.-based QuestSoft has released CRA Relief, a CRA data collection, compliance reporting, and submission partner to the company’s flagship HMDA product, HMDA Relief.CRA Relief is risk management software designed to ensure that lenders meet all federal Community Reinvestment Act regulations for performance ratings and process evaluations in a one-step submission. The product fully summarizes a financial institution's CRA data through quick and easy import options and drop-down menus, the company said. QuestSoft is a provider of Home Mortgage Disclosure Act and CRA compliance systems and in-house geocoding services for brokers and lenders. It can found on the Web at http://www.questsoft.com.

TrueClose, a Pittsburgh-based technology provider for the mortgage industry, has launched what it says is the first paperless mortgage origination platform for the mortgage industry.The TrueClose paperless platform enables mortgage professionals to identify, introduce, accept, and process mortgage actions that leverage the convenience, speed, and cost efficiencies of the Web, the company said. Specifically designed to manage the entire mortgage process, TrueClose allows service providers such as title insurers, appraisal services, real estate professionals, and settlement agents to engage in an electronic document exchange. TrueClose can be found on the Web at www.trueclose.com.

Version 1.0 of a technical guide to the implementation of SMART documents has been released by the eMortgage Workgroup of the Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization.The SMART Document Implementation Guide provides more than 30 chapters of technical guidance on specifications for SMART (securable, manageable, archivable, retrievable, and transferable) documents, MISMO said. "This is the roadmap the industry has asked for," said Harry Gardner, senior director of industry technology at the Mortgage Bankers Association, which established MISMO in 2000. "This more detailed SMART Doc Implementation Guide will allow the industry to develop its own e-mortgage capabilities and pilot programs. The I-Guide will expand to keep up with the advancement of the standard." MISMO's eMortgage Workgroup was established in 2001 to develop electronic mortgage standards, specifications, and guidelines that correspond to federal law on electronic signatures and related matters. The MBA can be found online at http://www.mortgagebankers.org.

BridgeSpan Inc., a title company and online closing specialist that recently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, has announced that Larry Walker will resign as president and chief executive officer next month.The Frisco, Texas-based BridgeSpan said Mr. Walker had been recruited in late 2002 in the hope that his expertise would help the company attract "early adopters" for its straight-through processing of electronic mortgages. "However, mortgage lenders were awash in refinance volume and reluctant to take on the complex changes to their internal operations that e-mortgages required," the company said. BridgeSpan can be found online at http://www.bridgespan.com.

Document Systems Inc., Carson, Calif., has released a new home equity product line of its DocMagic software, which the company will make available to its users.The new software provides a system for producing and delivering customized closing loan documents and can be tailored by DSI lawyers to the specifications of customer and investor needs, the company said. In addition, the software package for variable-rate interest-only loans and home equity lines of credit includes basic templates for each jurisdiction in the United States, which can also be adjusted to fit the needs of all users. Document Systems can be found on the Web at http://www.docmagic.com.

Dexma Inc., Edina, Minn., has hired Tim Anderson away from DocuTech, where he held the title of executive vice president.As Dexma's EVP for business solutions, Mr. Anderson will focus on new business initiatives. "This is a huge win for Dexma, because Tim is very well-respected and connected in the mortgage industry," said Dexma's Steve Mase. Mr. Anderson recently received Mortgage Technology magazine's prestigious Steve Fraser award for his work in building the eMortgage Alliance, which brings together companies that support the standards put forth by MISMO (the Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization, established by the Mortgage Bankers Association). Dexma is a member of MISMO. Mr. Anderson has held executive management positions with a number of companies in the industry, including Ignition Mortgage Technology Solutions, Home Advisor Technologies, HomeSide Lending, Cybertek Systems, and Alltel Information Management Services. He has served on the advisory boards of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Microsoft and has also served as a member of the MBA's Residential and Technology Committee and MISMO.

BridgeSpan has not ceased all operations, as MortgageWire erroneously reported, and the BridgeSpan website has relaunched after being taken down in the wake of the closure of BridgeSpan Title.The BridgeSpan homepage had been replaced earlier by a notice directing visitors to an eMortgageAxis Web page. BridgeSpan said about 150 employees were laid off as a result of the shutdown of BridgeSpan Title, not 200-plus as previously reported in The Title Report and cited by MW. A news release on the relaunched BridgeSpan homepage quotes BridgeSpan CEO Larry Walker as saying, "While BridgeSpan's innovative technology may have once been ahead of its time, it looks like its time may be just arriving." MortgageWire regrets the error.

While technology is a vital concern to mortgage lenders, it may make more sense to partner with others to get it, even if they are competitors, according to Kevin Shannon, president of consumer real estate for Bank of America.Mr. Shannon made his comments at Thomson Media's 7th Annual Mortgage Technology Conference in Miami. "Technology is not a differentiator," Mr. Shannon said. Branding and distribution are the keys to long-term success, he said. BoA says a key objective is to share technology costs with other firms to leverage that expense over a larger base of business. He admitted that "finding common ground when you're competing head to head is challenging." Last year, BoA bought Tarrytown, N.Y.-based Framework, developer of the LendWare loan origination and processing system, one of the technologies BoA hopes to leverage in the future.

Achieving paperless loans is the path to serving minorities and underserved markets, Fannie Mae's David Flaxman told Thomson Media's 7th Annual Mortgage Technology Conference in Miami in Wednesday's keynote address.Mr. Flaxman, Fannie Mae's chief of electronic solutions technology, said driving cost out of the mortgage process enables lenders to offer lower-cost mortgages to minorities, immigrants, and credit-impaired borrowers. He said mortgage lenders need to take note that emerging markets are "surging, not just emerging," citing statistics showing that even Midwestern cities like Des Moines, Iowa, and Wichita, Kan., have shown 100% growth in their Hispanic communities in recent years. He said deploying automated underwriting at the point of sale has increased hit rates for conventional loans to minority borrowers, preventing them from being shunted into subprime loans.

Advantage Credit, Pensacola, Fla., has begun providing credit score and credit correction information to mortgage brokers who subscribe to a recently launched website linking Spanish-speaking U.S. residents to Spanish-speaking brokers and lenders.The Web portal, MiCasaPrestamos.com, is a "'one-stop' Hispanic homebuying resource" that offers tools and credit information for new Hispanic immigrants and third-generation Hispanic Americans seeking to understand credit reports and their effects on obtaining a home loan, Advantage said. "Advantage's work with MiCasaPrestamos.com and other Hispanic efforts is the start of a much larger strategy in serving minority homebuyers in many language groups," said Advantage president Mark Simms. The company can be found online at http://www.advantagecredit.com, and the portal can be found at http://www.micasaprestamos.com.

Parasoft, a software provider based in Monrovia, Calif., has announced that the Servicing Systems Development Division of Countrywide has adopted its Jtest system to address software quality.Jtest enables Countrywide to automate unit testing and coding standard enforcement throughout an entire department, Parasoft said. The software company quoted Countrywide as saying that Jtest helps ensure the consistent application of standards and best practices, especially as they relate to leveraging outside development resources and monitoring software reuse efforts to maximize the value of investments in information technology. Jtest also works to reduce vulnerability to virus attacks and bugs, Parasoft said. Parasoft can be found online at http://www.parasoft.com.

InterFirst Wholesale Mortgage Lending, Ann Arbor, Mich., has announced the introduction of OneFee "Pricing Tool Only," which is designed to help mortgage brokers create their own guaranteed mortgage packages.The tool, an expansion of InterFirst's guaranteed OneFee mortgage package program, allows brokers to create their own unique guaranteed mortgage packages using local settlement service providers. The broker picks his or her own provider and negotiates the associated settlement service cost. Previously, the broker was subject to third-party service providers and costs negotiated by InterFirst. Mortgage loan costs are based on InterFirst's wholesale mortgage products and interest rates, and they incorporate the lender-related costs in the price quote. By using the tool, the broker assumes the risk that may be associated with guaranteeing the mortgage costs quoted to consumers at the time of application. InterFirst is a division of ABN Amro Mortgage Group, which can be found online at http://www.mortgage.com.

Golden West Financial/World Savings scored highest among savings institutions in the Winter 2004 Online Customer Respect Study, just ahead of Washington Mutual.The study examined how 76 of the largest financial services firms treat online customers. In measuring the time in which thrifts responded to inquiries from Web borrowers, the study showed that only 50% of websites deployed by thrifts use autoresponder technology to automate the sending of e-mails confirming receipt of a user's inquiry. The study identified response time as a critical factor in attracting new customers on the Web. Customer Respect Group, a research and consulting firm based in Bellevue, Wash., classifies more than 60 website attributes as indicators of simplicity, privacy, attitude (the customer focus of the site), transparency, responsiveness, and principles (respect for customer data). The company can be found online at http://www.customerrespect.com.

Patrick F. Stone, until recently the chief executive officer of Fidelity National Information Solutions, has resigned from the board of directors of Fidelity National Financial Inc., the parent company of FNIS.The Jacksonville, Fla.-based FNF said Mr. Stone has signed a five-year noncompetition agreement and will remain a consultant to the company. FNF can be found on the Web at http://www.fnf.com.