Mortgage technology

Entyre, a document provider based in Ann Arbor, Mich., has announced that XL Dynamics, Cerritos, Calif., has selected Entyre's eMortgage-X4 mortgage closing documentation system to use with the XL Dynamics MortgageSoft Online end-to-end loan origination system.Earlier this year, Entyre introduced its enterprise-class Web-based eMortgage-X4 product to offer lenders a private-branded, "plug and play" system that easily interfaces with legacy systems. MortgageSoft OnLine integrates loan origination, closing, servicing, secondary marketing, settlement, shipping, and insuring with real-time data access via the Internet. Entyre can be found online at http://www.entyre.com.

Dorado Corp., San Mateo, Calif., has announced a diversification of its Web-based ChannelMaster product offerings to better serve the needs of the underserved, minority, and low-income borrowers nationwide.Dorado said it will help lenders provide bundled affordable housing services through point-of-sale access to real estate settlement packages. Among the ChannelMaster users are Countrywide Home Loans Inc. and The First American Corp. First American is using the new website capabilities to offer discount packages of products for underserved borrowers "previously denied access by traditional scoring systems." It also plans to use ChannelMaster to introduce Californians to new affordable housing bundled products that include a credit report, title insurance, settlement services, flood certification, and home warranty. Meanwhile, Dorado is providing a Spanish-language version of its website that provides point-of-sale access to Countrywide loan officers serving minority and lower-income borrowers.

Nashua, N.H.-based GuideMark has a released a multifeatured Wholesale Mortgage Broker Relationship System that incorporates customer relationship management features to integrate customer interaction with financial transactions.According to the company, the system was developed in collaboration with executives, managers, and producers at wholesale mortgage institutions such as National City Bank. GuideMark said the system yields the following benefits: increased net income, higher loan-to-closing conversion ratios, improved market share with existing brokers, more effective sales calls, and open doors for targeted cross-selling. In the early stages of broker training, the pilot launch with National City produced positive comments from account executives and participating brokers, the company said. GuideMark can be found online at http://www.guidemark.com.

Affinity Technology Group Inc., Columbia, S.C., has announced that Household International Inc. has filed a declaratory judgment action against Affinity's patent licensing subsidiary, decisioning.com, in U.S. District Court in Wilmington, Del.The Household complaint requests a ruling that Household is not infringing upon any of decisioning.com's patents and that these patents are not valid. An Affinity official said the company is evaluating whether to pursue action in Delaware or to challenge Household's suit. Affinity, through decisioning.com, owns a portfolio of patents that cover the automated processing and establishment of loans, financial accounts, and credit accounts through an applicant-directed remote interface, such as a personal computer or terminal touch screen. In September, Affinity filed a complaint against Ameritrade Holding Corp. alleging that Ameritrade's "Express Application" feature, which allows applicants to open and fund accounts online, infringes on one of the company's patents.

David Aach has been named chief operating officer of Palisades Technology Partners, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., a supplier of software and application development services to the mortgage industry.In addition to managing the company's day-to-day operations, Mr. Aach will focus on direct sales and alliance strategies to support the company's continued growth, Palisades said. Mr. Aach has more than 28 years of mortgage technology and sales experience. Before joining Palisades, he served as national sales manager for John Harland Financial Solutions, and strategic account manager for Corillian. Mr. Aach also served as vice president of mortgage systems for Citicorp Mortgage, where he was instrumental in rolling out the first loan origination system to use laser-printed mortgage documents, Palisades said. The company can be found online at http://www.ptpusa.com.

E*Trade Financial Corp., Menlo Park, Calif., has launched Fair Compare, a Web-based mortgage shopping tool that it says allows consumers to objectively and anonymously compare the total package price of any lender's mortgage offer with a similar loan product offered by E*Trade Mortgage.E*Trade said the product was developed in response to anticipated changes in the mortgage interest rate environment, primarily to address two frustrations many consumers encounter when shopping for a mortgage: inability to compare pricing on an "apples-to-apples" basis and difficulty in obtaining a firm, all-inclusive quote that will not change before closing. According to Robert Bernabe, head of E*Trade Financial's retail mortgage lending operation, the tool will help consumers better understand the lending process. "This consultative approach is something that has been missing in the industry for some time," he said. "The consumer should have an offer upfront that is firm and that allows them to know what they are getting into. This helps them go into that with their eyes wide open." E*Trade can be found on the Internet at http://www.etrade.com.

GreenPoint Mortgage, Novato, Calif., a national nonconforming lender, has successfully deployed the Empower! loan origination software offered by Fidelity Business Systems Group, a division of Fidelity National Financial Inc. located in Jacksonville, Fla.GreenPoint will use the software in all its origination and delivery channels, the company said. The lender specializes in alternative-A loans and closed more than $33 billion worth of the product in 2002. Fidelity Empower! was deployed to over 2,500 end users at GreenPoint. Additionally, the Empower! loan origination software system has been integrated with GreenPoint's loan servicing platform, which is provided by Fidelity Information Services. The successful conversion involved the migration of 1.17 million loans, representing 407 million rows of database information. Fidelity Empower! can be found on the Internet at http://www.empower.fnis.com.

Close to half of all mortgage broker lending in the United Kingdom -- which represents 19% of total U.K. lending -- is done online, according to a recent study.The study by TowerGroup and Frank Eve Consulting Ltd. shows that "real-time, Web-based technology has become indispensable for lenders to efficiently manage mortgage intermediary (mortgage broker) relationships, and for intermediaries to adapt to new Financial Services Authority regulation." Tower Group can be found online at http://www.towergroup.com.

Online Documents Inc., Concord, Calif., has announced an inter-connection agreement that will enable lenders using its software and services to upload electronic mortgage documents directly to the BCE Emergis electronic lending platform.Online president Joan Ingham said electronic documents meeting the specifications of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization "are immediately available to Online's customers with a simple mouse click from any of our current document solutions.... This cooperative arrangement between Stewart, Online, and BCE Emergis offers lenders a turnkey method to move quickly to the forefront of the paperless mortgage revolution." Online Documents, a subsidiary of Stewart Information Services Corp., can be found online at http://www.onlinedocuments.com.

An affiliate of Fitch Ratings plans to release a version of the 2003 model the company uses to set credit enhancement levels for securitized, residential mortgages in the first quarter of next year.Among the things the model takes into account are regional home price bubbles and performance statistics that show alternative-A credits have a better and different performance record than B&C credits, Fitch analysts said at a meeting in New York. Fitch has been using this model to set credit enhancement levels since about the end of the first quarter of this year, said Sarbashis Ghosh, senior director in Fitch's structured finance residential mortgage area. The Nov. 5 meeting was its first public discussion of the model's underlying statistics, he said. Fitch Ratings can be found online at http://www.fitchratings.com.

Standard & Poor's has released an updated version of its credit risk analysis product for residential mortage-backed securities.S&P had added several new fields of information that "has been shown to play a critical role in a loan's foreclosure frequency or loss severity expectation" to the product. Among these is a compliance field that takes into account anti-predatory lending laws. S&P can be found online at http://www.standardandpoors.com.

Titan Investment Partners LLC, a private equity firm based in San Diego that is also the managing owner of Del Mar Database, will acquire Sollen Technologies LLC, Dallas.Sollen develops technology that provides real-time delivery of mortgage loan product and pricing information for U.S. mortgage lenders. Details of the deal were not disclosed, but Titan said it expects the deal to close within the next few weeks. Titan, a provider of mortgage technology services to over 230 lenders in the United States, is a member of the Relational Group, an asset management and financial advisory firm with more than $2.3 billion under management. Del Mar Database is the developer of the DataTrac and WebTrac business applications. The companies can be found on the Web at http://www.sollen.com and http://www.delmardb.com.

NetBank Inc., Atlanta, has reported net income of $15.6 million ($0.32 per share) for the third quarter, compared with $8.5 million a year earlier.Among the highlights the bank reported for the third quarter were record mortgage production of $5.7 billion, including record originations through the nonconforming channel of $589 million, and strategic retention by the bank of $586 million in company-originated loans. NetBank originated $5.1 billion in conforming mortgages during the quarter, a slight decrease from last quarter's record numbers. On the nonconforming side, the company originated $589 million in loans. NetBank can be found on the Web at http://www.netbank.com.

Fidelity National Financial Inc., Jacksonville, Fla., has reported net income of $277.3 million ($1.99 per share) for the third quarter, compared with $143.5 million ($1.16 per share) a year earlier.The company pointed out that its results included $52 million in pretax realized investment gain and $53 million in expense items that had been previously disclosed. Those items had a net effect of $1 million in pretax expenses on the results and less than one-half-cent on earnings per share, FNF said. Fidelity National can be found on the Web at http://www.fnf.com.

Qvault, Essex Junction, Vt., has released version 2.5 of its Status Sweep software, a tool that works in conjunction with Calyx Point to provide pipeline management and other tools for originators.Features in the new version include enhanced support for mortgage teams. "Originators are realigning their organizations around a team concept," said managing partner Rob Cecil. "We have had clients and prospects alike tell us they are planning to move away from the traditional 'loan officer-processor' model to more of a team environment." Version 2.5 also provides a significant increase in vendor or supply chain communication. Status Sweep was designed especially for a mortgage lending customer who needed to track and then provide access to the status of events using the Point database. Today, Qvault markets the software nationwide. Qvault can be found on the Internet at http://www.qvault.com.

Fiserv Inc., Brookfield, Wis., has reported record net income of $80.4 million ($0.41 per share) for the third quarter, compared with $66.2 million ($0.34 per share) a year earlier.The company said it completed five acquisitions in the third quarter, including Insurance Management Solutions Group, St. Petersburg, Fla., which services the flood insurance market; and General American Corp., Pittsburgh, a provider of technology and settlement services to the real estate and mortgage banking industries. Fiserv provides integrated data processing and information management systems to banks, mortgage lenders, and others in the financial services industry. The company can be found online at http://www.fiserv.com.

Document Systems Inc., Carson, Calif., and ProLender Solutions Inc., San Diego, have completed an interface that will enable ProLender users to submit loan-specific data directly to DSI's DocMagic product.Through the interface, ProLender communicates directly with DSI's servers and transmits data in Extensible Markup Language so that DocMagic can provide customized loan documents electronically or for posting on the Web. The company made the announcements at the MBA's annual convention in San Diego. ProLender's website address is http://www.prolender.com. DSI can be found at http://www.docmagic.com.

Mortgage Builder Software Inc., Southfield, Mich., has rolled out direct interfaces with four credit information companies: CBC Companies, LandAmerica, Info1, and Factual Data.The integrated interface keeps customers on the Mortgage Builder system without transporting them to another website to receive credit reports. MBSI offers access to more than 230 additional credit reporting agencies, but the interface to these four preferred vendors was created due to user demand, the company said. The majority of Mortgage Builder's customers use one of these four credit bureaus to process loan applications, according to the company. The company made the announcements at the MBA's annual convention in San Diego. MBSI's website address is http://www.mortgagebuilder.com.

Case Shiller Weiss, Boston, a unit of Fiserv Inc., has added three new service options via the Casa valuation platform.Casa Order Explorer is a Web-based application that allows lenders to monitor Casa accountholder order activity, create utilization reports, and search archived reports. Casa Future Value provides a predicted value for the property one year out, and Casa Plus is a product warranty. The company made the announcements at the Mortgage Bankers Association of America's annual convention in San Diego. CSW can be found on the Internet at http://www.cswcasa.com.

AmeriDream Inc., Gaithersburg, Md., has announced the release of Gift Xpress, which it says is the industry's first electronic downpayment gift program.The Web-enabled tool allows lenders to submit applications online and allows settlement companies to finalize gift applications electronically at the settlement table, AmeriDream said. "GiftXpress streamlines and automates the process and reduces the time spent on paperwork," said Ann Ashburn, president and chief executive officer of AmeriDream. The company said the new program was developed in partnership with Silanis Technology. The announcement was made at the MBA's annual convention in San Diego. AmeriDream can be found online at http://www.ameridream.org.