Mortgage technology

Claiming the top spot as a provider of transaction-capable retail lending websites to the mortgage industry, Mortgagebot has announced that its Powersite platform now boasts over 300 users.That milestone was reached in July, the company said, when Mortgagebot signed 13 new clients. The company serves most of its users as an application service provider, charging a minimal set-up fee, with an additional fee per closed loan. Mortgagebot is a two-time winner of Mortgage Technology magazine’s annual awards, once for Website of the Year and once as co-winner (with Fiserv) of the Synergy Award.

FinancialCircuit, Campbell, Calif., has signed a deal with Linsco/Private Ledger, San Diego, that will see its 4,700 independent financial advisers using FinancialCircuit's technology and lending systems.LPL is the largest broker-dealer in the country, with some 4,700 representatives. In the past, the company referred out mortgage business, but now advisers can use MoneyFind to provide debt consolidation products and services to its clients. The loans are then originated online and funded through a FinancialCircuit mortgage broker subsidiary. In addition to MoneyFind, LPL representatives will also have access to FinancialCircuit's transaction processing center. The processing center assists advisers with the execution of the client-selected mortgage and liability restructuring plans generated by FinancialCircuit's technology systems. The companies can be found on the Web at http://www.financialcircuit.com and http://www.joinlpl.com.

Homestore Inc., a provider of real estate media and technology systems, has announced a $63.6 million settlement agreement with the California State Teachers' Retirement System, the lead plaintiff in a class action lawsuit against the company.Under the agreement, which is subject to the approval of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, Homestore will pay $13 million in cash, issue 20 million new shares of common stock to members of the class, and adopt certain changes in corporate governance. The $13 million and the stock, currently valued at $50.6 million, will result in a one-time litigation settlement charge of approximately $63.6 million in the second quarter, the company said. Jack Ehnes, chief executive officer of CalSTRS, commended "the straightforward way in which the new management team at Homestore and its board of directors" worked to resolve the case. The governance provisions include, among other things, requirements for independent directors and special committees, the appointment of a new shareholder-nominated director, and a ban on the use of stock options for director compensation. The company can be found online at http://ir.homestore.com.

Nationwide Advantage Mortgage Co., Columbus, Ohio, and Yahoo! en espanol, a Spanish-language Internet service based in Coral Gables, Fla., have launched a mini-website offering mortgage services to Hispanics.Called "The Best Mortgage" center, the site will offer Hispanic consumers information for both experienced and first-time homebuyers, the companies said. Users will be able to check NAMC's mortgage rates and submit a free loan application online or over the telephone, with decisions in as little as 10 minutes, they said. "Our research indicates that, historically, the Latino community has had too many barriers to homebuying and financing needs," said Robert Kallio, NAMC's associate vice president of marketing. "Our partnership with Yahoo! en espanol provides the informational resources and financial tools to lower the cost of buying and owning a home for the growing Latino market." The mini-site can be found online at http://www.lamejorhipoteca.com, and the companies can be found at http://www.nationwide.com and http://www.yahooenespanol.com.

Tony Merlo has been named executive vice president/chief operating officer of eAppraiseIT LLC, a provider of real estate valuation services based in Poway, Calif.Mr. Merlo, who has 25 years of experience in the banking, mortgage banking, and title insurance industries, was most recently senior vice president of production for eAppraiseIT, a joint venture of The First American Corp. and Land America Financial Group. He was previously assistant vice president in the strategic sales division of First American’s Real Estate Information Services Group, and has also been assistant VP and regional manager for the Atlantic region of First American Title. The company can be found online at http://www.eappraiseit.com.

Encomia, Houston, and Ingeo, Logan, Utah, have both joined the eMortgage Alliance, a consortium of companies and experts dedicated to delivering all-electronic mortgage systems.Encomia will provide technology to implement digital signatures, electronic closing, and so-called electronic vaulting -- which provides for the storage and retrieval of electronic notes and other supporting documents -- while Ingeo delivers the last link in the chain: electronic recording. The eMortgage Alliance was founded by DocuTech Corp., Idaho Falls, Idaho. The alliance unites the capabilities of DocuTech, Wave Systems, VirPack, SwiftView, Rekon Technologies, and The Performance Group to enable customers to produce e-mortgages. Members each specialize in and automate separate steps of the e-mortgage process, including the creation of SMART (securable, manageable, archivable, retrievable, transferable) documents and electronic signing, packaging, messaging, closing, recording, and vaulting.

Dorado Corp., San Mateo, Calif., has announced that its user base has exceeded the 40,000 mark, which it attributed to its flagship ChannelMaster and PriceMaster Internet applications for home lending.The company said both products have been widely adopted by loan officers, brokers, and correspondents in Dorado's customer base, which includes Chase Manhattan Mortgage Corp., Citibank, Countrywide Home Loans, and Washington Mutual Mortgage. A provider of Demand Chain Management software for home lending banks, Dorado said its mortgage, home equity, and real estate products integrate business customers and consumers into lending processes. The company can be found online at http://www.dorado.com.

BridgeSpan Inc., a provider of real estate settlement and mortgage processing technology, has announced the relocation of its corporate headquarters from Mountain View, Calif., to Frisco, Texas, a suburb of Dallas.As a result, BridgeSpan said it would expand its Frisco facility, the second time this year it has announced a major expansion there. The company said the move would enable its technology, marketing, and finance departments to operate from a single center and would improve service as a result of sharing the same facility as the company's "client-facing" operations in Texas.

The mortgage boom is not abating, says Oklahoma City-based a la mode, citing more than 13.6 million real estate appraisal reports submitted to lenders via the company's Mercury Network over the past 12 months.Appraisal-related file requests and transactions -- such as location and flood map downloads, and appraisal report exchanges between appraisers and loan officer clients -- represent mortgage loans in process and are "the most reliable leading indicator of mortgage volume," the company said. "It continues to be a historically busy time for mortgage and appraisal professionals, and we can say with confidence, based on our server volume, that it shows no sign of slowing down in the immediate future," said Mike Unser, a la mode's product line manager. The Mercury Network is "the largest transaction platform in the mortgage industry," serving more than half of U.S. appraisers and nearly all the nation's loan officers and mortgage brokers, according to a la mode. The company can be found online at http://www.alamode.com.

Fairfield Financial Services, Macon, Ga., a subsidiary of Security Bank of Bibb County, has selected eLynx uSign technology for electronically signing mortgage disclosure and loan documents through the Internet.The Cincinnati-based eLynx Ltd. is a provider of electronic document delivery systems for mortgage lenders. "We selected eLynx uSign to reduce delivery costs and the amount of time spent sending documents back and forth to homebuyers," said Tino Sheridan, president of Fairfield Financial Services. The technology that powers eLynx uSign was developed by Silanis Technology. The mortgage banking firm said it plans to have eLynx uSign fully implemented by September. The companies can be found on the Web at http://www.fairfield-financial.com and http://www.elynx.com.

Fidelity National Information Solutions Inc., Santa Barbara, Calif., has reported record net earnings of $15.3 million in the second quarter, up 68% from $6.2 million a year earlier.The company said it booked $142.3 million in revenue during the quarter, also a company record, up from $92.1 million in the second quarter of 2002. FNIS is in the process of merging with majority stockholder Fidelity National Financial. FNIS can be found on the Internet at http://www.fnis.com.

Thomas M. Bradham Jr. has been hired as vice president and chief information officer of LOGS Financial Services Inc., a Northbrook, Ill.-based provider of outsourced default management services for lenders.Mr. Bradham was most recently vice president of client services at Prizm Technologies, an information technology-outsourcing firm specializing in the financial sector. He was previously assistant vice president of data center operations at IndyMac bank, and worked for Resource Bancshares Mortgage Group, now NetBank, in various roles, LOGS said. The company can be found online at http://www.logs.com.

Synergistic Software Systems Inc., Spokane, Wash., has released version 2.0 of its SharperLending Electronic Partner Network, which it says adds increased performance and a host of enhanced features.SharperLending is a Web-based platform that lenders use to order, store, and manage the reports they need to close a loan. Synergistic said the platform is free for lenders and brokers to use. The only cost is for reports that lenders order. The new version has been streamlined to give lenders faster and easier access to third-party settlement services, the company said. In addition, Synergistic said it has added more capabilities to the system to allow it to scale up to handle additional volume. The new version also sports a new screen look and features that make it easier to customize a lender's service provider choices to its own workflow. Synergistic can be found online at http://www.sharperlending.com.

PCi Corp., Boston, has released Wiz Geocoder 3.5, a Web-based tool to integrate "geocoding" and edit-check capabilities into front-line applications that now includes Regulation C compliance.Geocoding allows financial institutions to retrieve demographic data for each applicant, enabling them to offer the most appropriate loan to each individual. With the introduction of Regulation C, financial institutions are expected to collect and analyze a dozen or more new variables when considering loan applications, the company pointed out. The new tool is designed to protect the integrity of data collected at the point of sale. The Wiz Geocoder, with enhanced edit-check functionality, also supports flood determinations, anti-predatory-lending analysis, and other compliance-related tasks. PCi can be found on the Web at http://www.pciwiz.com.

CitiMortgage, St. Louis, unveiled a new electronic delivery program to its correspondent lenders at the recent Western Secondary Market and Mortgage Bankers Conference in San Francisco.The new delivery platform is designed to provide flexibility to the company’s lending sources. When and how loans are registered and delivered is left to the individual correspondent. Single or multiple loans can be delivered in one session with all final data included in the transaction, or the correspondent can choose to update the loan information over time through multiple sessions and then submit it for final delivery, CitiMortgage said. The new program is the second of three phases of Citi’s technology initiative. Ultimately, the company says it will create a complete, end-to-end online registration, delivery, transaction, and pipeline management platform for the wholesale mortgage market. CitiMortgage's Internet address is http://www.citimortgage.com.

Fidelity National Financial Inc., Irvine, Calif., which owns approximately 66% of Fidelity National Information Solutions, Santa Barbara, Calif., has announced the terms of a merger agreement under which it will acquire all the remaining outstanding shares of FNIS.Each share of FNIS common stock will be exchanged for 0.830 shares of FNF common stock, FNF said. Based on FNF's closing price of $31.54 on July 10, the ratio would represent a consideration of $26.18 per share of FNIS. The agreement imposes a $29 cap on the implied per-share consideration, and if the consideration falls below $19 per share, FNF may adjust the exchange ratio to maintain the implied consideration at $19 per share, FNF said. The transaction was first proposed in May, with an exchange ratio of 0.805 and an implied offer price of $24.70 per share of FNIS common stock. The companies can be found online at http://www.fidelitynational.com and http://www.fnis.com.

Eighty-five percent of consumers with Internet access researched the purchase of a home online in the past two years, and single women in particular rate online mortgage information as valuable, according to a Yahoo! Real Estate survey.Among single women, 92% of those responding to the survey (conducted by Harris Interactive) researched homebuying online, said Yahoo! Real Estate. Moreover, 62% of single women rated online mortgage calculators as valuable and 68% rated online "how-to" articles on picking lenders as valuable, compared with 54% and 53%, respectively, of single men. The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Yahoo! cited data from the National Association of Realtors indicating that twice as many single women as single men bought homes in 2001. Yahoo! Real Estate can be found online at http://realestate.yahoo.com.

Associated Software Consultants Inc., Middleburg Heights, Ohio, has announced that Woronoco Savings Bank has implemented ASC's Java-based PowerLender loan origination system.A spokesman for Westfield, Mass.-based Woronoco said the fact that PowerLender is written in Java makes it easier to integrate, maintain, and upgrade the LOS so that it complements other computer systems, such as the bank's link to its service bureau, Connecticut Online. The system is compatible with commonly used database programs such as Oracle, MS SQL, or MySQL. The companies can be found online at http://www.asconline.com and http://www.woronoco.com.

In a widely expected move to expand its market reach beyond top-tier lenders, Tarrytown, N.Y.-based Framework Inc. has announced a full range of purchase and deployment options for its LendWare credit fulfillment platform and components.The options to be offered include releasing source code to lender customers (such as Washington Mutual) desiring to create an in-house system; subscription-based licensing; a pre-configured LendWare system to reduce implementation time and lower cost; an ASP (application service provider) utility for customers seeing to minimize information technology infrastructure; and a business-process outsource utility offering economies of scale through a Framework BPO partner or fulfillment provider. Framework, recently acquired by Bank of America after providing the technology powering BoA’s LoanSolutions enterprise-wide system, has strategic relationships with Fidelity and other fulfillment providers.

E-Loan, Dublin, Calif., has become the first lender to earn the title "Upfront Mortgage Lender" from a faculty member at the Wharton School who calls himself "The Mortgage Professor."Jack Guttentag, professor of finance emeritus at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, has launched a program to certify Internet lenders, and E-Loan was the first to fulfill the five requirements of the program. Mr. Guttentag, who advises consumers about the mortgage process, says the requirements lenders must meet to be considered "upfront" include specifying which market niches they serve, providing a guaranteed mortgage package, and providing clear information on lock requirements, ARMS, and loan officer compensation. E-Loan can be found online at http://www.eloan.com, and Mr. Guttentag can be found at http://www.mtgprofessor.com.