Mortgage technology

GHR Systems Inc., Wayne, Pa., has announced the acquisition of Berkeley, Calif.-based Loansoft, which provides retail loan origination software to four of the top 10 U.S. residential mortgage lenders, including Chase and Washington Mutual.The terms of the transaction were not disclosed. GHR is best known for its widely used decisioning system and its products serving the wholesale transaction. Both companies operate on Microsoft-based platforms. The merged entity has 300 employees that serve a customer base of over 70 lenders, 17,000 loan officers, and 25,000 brokers. Loansoft said it will continue to operate from its current California location and that both entities will offer current product lines as licensed or hosted applications.

Walter C. Morgan has been named executive vice president for strategic business development at Integrated Loan Service, Rocky Hill, Conn.ILS said Mr. Morgan will be responsible for developing strategic partnerships and new business for ILS and Fiserv's Lending Services and Solutions Group, of which ILS is a part. He was formerly with Fidelity National Information Solutions and Market Intelligence. ILS provides lending systems to banks, credit unions, and mortgage lenders. It can be found online at http://www.ils.com.

Data-Vision Inc., Mishawaka, Ind., has announced the release of DisclosureDocs, an online system that allows mortgage originators to deliver loan applications and initial disclosure documents electronically.The secure documents can then be digitally signed by the consumer and returned within minutes. When a consumer signs the documents, the lender is notified by e-mail. Data-Vision said it will make the documents available to the homeowner on demand for a period of 90 days. Records can also be stored on the system and made available to the consumer for 27 months at the option of the lending institution. Part of Data-Vision's RemoteDocs service, DisclosureDocs will be rolled out to the company's clients later this year and to all others in early 2004. Data-Vision can be found on the Internet at http://www.disclosuredocs.com.

Fiserv Inc., Brookfield, Wis., has announced the completion of its acquisition of General American Corp., a provider of real estate settlement services to the lending industry.The terms of the deal were not disclosed. GAC operates in two divisions: GAC Direct and GATORSystems. GAC Direct, which provides the majority of the company's revenues, is a settlement services provider to financial institutions and realty firms nationwide. Its services are delivered over an Internet gateway connected to three national processing centers. Fiserv said. The GATORSystems division licenses technology systems and software to settlement service providers. Fiserv can be found on the Internet at www.fiserv.com.

Ellie Mae, Dublin, Calif., says it will go "head-to-head" with San Jose, Calif.-based Calyx Software, makers of the popular Point loan origination system, in order to get market share by launching a new application called Encompass.The new application is designed to go beyond the LOS, according to Ellie Mae chairman and CEO Sig Anderman, by offering three separate views of the organization. Loan officers, processors and brokers will all see different screens depending upon their unique needs, but all data will be seamlessly shared throughout the organization and messages can be sent between them. Encompass is integrated with Ellie Mae's ePass Business Center, giving users access to settlement services providers and wholesale lenders, with returned data populated directly into the file. Brokers ordering Encompass before Jan. 31, 2004, will receive the software at no cost, including a free first year of support and maintenance. Ellie Mae's website address is http://www.elliemae.com.

Del Mar Database, a San Diego-based mortgage technology firm, has appointed John Walsh president and chief operating officer and Doug Clawson chief technology officer.Mr. Walsh most recently served as president of RF/Spectrum Decision Science Corp. and chairman and chief executive officer of PureCarbon Inc. "In addition to a focus on our products and services, I know from my background in mortgage banking software that it is critical to expand our overall services to a level that consistently exceeds our customers' expectations," Mr. Walsh said. As Del Mar Database's new CTO, Mr. Clawson is planning a new generation of technology for Del Mar's flagship software, DataTrac. He has more than 18 years of experience in developing software technology products. Del Mar's website address is http://www.delmardb.com.

Third Federal Savings and Loan, Cleveland, has inked a deal to sell its online home equity business to Lightyear Capital, New York, for an undisclosed sum.Third Federal launched the business, called DeepGreen Bank, three years ago. A spokeswoman for the thrift declined to discuss DGB's profitability. Lightyear, a private equity firm that manages $2 billion in assets, will take control of all of DGB's servicing rights, its production platform, technology, infrastructure, management team, and employees. DGB, which gets leads from LendingTree, funded $1.2 billion last year and is on track to fund $1.4 billion this year, said a company spokesman. Third Federal has been buying loans from DGB and will continue to do so, the spokesman said. (See the Oct. 6 issue of National Mortgage News for more details.)

Fiserv Inc., Brookfield, Wis., has agreed to acquire General American Corp., a Pittsburgh-based provider of real estate settlement services to the lending industry, for an undisclosed amount.GAC is majority-owned by Mason Wells, a private equity investment firm based in Milwaukee. Fiserv said GAC operates in two divisions: GAC Direct, which offers online settlement services nationwide, and GATORSystems, which licenses technology and software to settlement service providers. Leslie M. Muma, Fiserv's president and chief executive officer, said GAC has achieved success by "making lives easier for lenders in every part of the country with its highly automated real estate settlement services." Fiserv said GAC services more than 4,000 customers and manages a network of more than 10,000 independent vendors. Fiserv can be found online at http://www.fiserv.com.

Fidelity National Information Solutions, Santa Barbara, Calif., has released TransactionPoint version 6.0 for SoftPro, which provides online transaction coordination and management services to closing agents and their customers.The integration of the software with the SoftPro title and escrow production system offers enhanced document management, automated routing, transaction coordination and management, and improved systemwide ease of use and reporting capabilities, FNIS said. The company said the integration will enable SoftPro to offer "true front-to-back data transfer capabilities," which it said will fill "one of the biggest voids of currently available title production systems." The companies can be found online at http://www.fnis.com and http://www.softprocorp.com.

Thomas H. Vetter has been named to the newly created position of senior vice president for the HomeBuilder.com business unit of Homestore Inc., Westlake Village, Calif.Mr. Vetter served most recently as senior vice president of sales and marketing for iBidCo, an online marketer of new homes. Before that he was president of the Accelerated Marketing and Special Event Division of The Ryness Co., where he was responsible for sales of single-family and multifamily communities. HomeBuilder.com is the official new-homes site of the National Association of Home Builders. Homestore can be found online at http://ir.homestore.com.

LenderTechnologies Corp., a subsidiary of the Mortgage Bankers Association of America, has announced the release of an Internet-based customer information security service for financial institutions.The service, ProtectInfo, was created in response to the information security requirements imposed on such institutions -- including mortgage bankers and brokers subject to regulation by the Federal Trade Commission -- by the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act and subsequent regulations, the MBA said. The ProtectInfo website features products and services designed to aid in developing such customer privacy programs. Among the services offered by ProtectInfo are an online Compliance Assessment Tool for measuring compliance with the FTC's Information Safeguards Rule; and SafeGuardian, Web-based software that will help companies develop a customer information security program. ProtectInfo can be found online at http://www.protectinfo.com.

Houston-based Encomia has announced the formation of the eMortgage Institute, an online resource offering educational workshops on electronic mortgages for mortgage executives.The institute is offering the first workshop, Introduction to eMortgages, at no charge. The two-hour basic workshop is designed to familiarize mortgage professionals with e-mortgages from a nontechnical, business perspective, Encomia said. The eMortgage Institute can be found online at http://www.emortgageinstitute.com.

A source at E*Trade Group Inc., Menlo Park, Calif., has confirmed that E*Trade Mortgage reduced its staff earlier this month by 163 full-time employees, but said the move was expected and that most of those laid off were employed by a temporary firm and had been working for E*Trade for less than 12 months.The move was related to a drop in volume the company has seen since rates have begun to edge upward. The company has begun releasing its numbers on a monthly basis. E*Trade originated $2.9 billion in retail mortgage loans during the second quarter. In July, the company reported $1.2 billion in direct mortgage originations, up from $1 billion in June. The August numbers have not yet been released.

TradeWeb LLC, an online fixed-income network based in New York, has launched a callable agency debt product.The product allows users to execute trades of any size with agency dealers that use the technology. TradeWeb can be found online at http://www.tradeweb.com.

Spending on automated mortgage collateral management systems will grow from $33 million this year to $193 million in 2008, according to an estimate by TowerGroup, Needham, Mass.The spending increase will cut the average time for a mortgage lender to complete a home appraisal from 6-10 days now to 4-7 days by 2008, the company said. "This is a critical shift for the mortgage lending industry, as it faces declining loan volumes following the record mortgage refinancing period experienced over the past two years," TowerGroup said. ".... Recent introductions of automated valuation models and automated collateral management systems hold promise for mortgage lenders to streamline traditional appraisals and collateral document management, which is the lengthiest and least automated of the loan processing tasks." The company said the forecast is based on research titled "The Next Mortgage Underwriting Revolution: Mortgage Collateral Assessment," by Craig Focardi, a senior analyst in TowerGroup's Consumer Credit practice. The company can be found online at http://www.towergroup.com.

One month to the day after IAC/InterActiveCorp (formerly known as USA Interactive) announced the completion of its acquisition of LendingTree Inc., RE/Max International filed a lawsuit against LendingTree alleging trademark infringement, unfair competition, and exploitation of its goodwill.The nine-count complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court in Denver, further alleges that the Charlotte, N.C.-based LendingTree used its website to make misleading statements about its relationship with RE/Max brokers. RE/Max, the international real estate agent and broker network, said LendingTree's site was misleading in that it led consumers to believe that the company was working with the entire RE/Max network. Furthermore, the complaint alleges that LendingTree.com "creates the false impression that…RE/Max and other major real estate franchisors have somehow aligned themselves with each other to create an agent locator service operated by LendingTree." LendingTree.com does feature a real estate agent locator service on its homepage that purports to give consumers access to national companies such as Coldwell Banker, Century 21, GMAC, and RE/Max, as well as independent local Realtors. RE/Max alleges that LendingTree has "at times, referred consumers to non-RE/Max agents or brokers despite specific requests from consumers for a RE/Max agent." The companies can be found online at http://www.lendingtree.com and http://www.remax.com.

New York-based Framework Inc., which provides enterprise-wide credit fulfillment technology for Bank of America and Washington Mutual, is about to announce that it has become the latest to join the eMortgage Alliance, a consortium of companies founded by DocuTech Corp.Alliance members collaborate to deliver all-electronic mortgage transactions. Framework offers a Web services-based platform through its LendWare credit fulfillment system to streamline electronic processes. The eMortgage Alliance members specialize in and automate separate steps of the eMortgage process, including the creation of SMART (securable, manageable, archivable, retrievable, transferable) documents and electronic signing, packaging, messaging, closing, recording, and vaulting, as well as strategic planning and implementation. Other members includes Wave Systems, VirPack, SwiftView, Rekon Technologies, The Performance Group, Encomia, and Ingeo. Framework can be found online at http://www.lendware.com, and DocuTech, based in Idaho Falls, Idaho, can be found at http://www.docutechcorp.com.

Dynatek Inc., Livonia, Mich., the developers of the MORvision loan origination system, has added an electronic document delivery (EDD) interface category to its Integration Suite offering that will make it easy for providers of electronic mortgage documents to do business with MORvision users.Dynatek's proprietary Plug-In technology provides system level integration of external data files between mortgage industry vendors and MORvision, giving lenders the equivalent of an electronic partner network built into the LOS. The new Plug-In for EDD will allow one-click electronic document delivery for MORvision users. Now, any EDD vendor can develop a Plug-In for MORvision. Data-Vision has already developed a Plug-In for its RemoteDocs offering and VMP has one for its vmpdelivers product. Dynatek's Integration Suite, a collection of Plug-Ins for credit bureaus, flood, title, appraisals, mortgage insurance, automated underwriting, registration and transaction portals. Dynatek's website address is http://www.dynatek.com.

Provantedge Technologies, Lake Forest, Calif., will provide electronic access to Plano, Texas-based LandSafe's credit reports and other credit services to mortgage brokers and lenders who use its Provantedge nVision loan management system.According to LandSafe president D. Steve Boland, the integration of the company's online systems with nVision should further increase order volume. Provantedge said it would also provide access to LandSafe's products through its VOX Loan Professional Websites offering, a tool that extends nVision's capabilities for online loan origination. LandSafe's services include appraisals, credit reporting, flood determination, title insurance, and escrow services for residential mortgage transactions. The companies can be found on the Web at http://www.provantedge.com and http://www.landsafe.com.

Kroll Inc., a risk consulting company based in New York, and Factual Data Corp., a Loveland, Colo.-based provider of information to the mortgage and consumer lending industries, have announced the exchange ratio for the stock portion of Kroll's previously announced acquisition of Factual Data.The exchange ratio has been set at 0.1497 of a share of Kroll common stock for each share of Factual Data common stock. The companies said the ratio reflects a volume-weighted average price of $23.3842 per share of Kroll stock for the measurement period, which ended Aug. 18. In addition to the stock portion, Factual Data shareholders will receive $14 in cash for each share of their common stock. The companies can be found online at http://www.krollworldwide.com and http://www.factualdata.com.