Mortgage technology

GMAC-Residential Funding Corp., Minneapolis, has entered into an agreement to use Toronto-basedBasis100 Inc.'s Solimar Valuation Technology. GMAC-RFC, an equity investor inBasis100, will employ the Solimar technology as one of its automated valuation model vendors to secure automatedproperty valuations for loan purchase decisions and for enhanced appraisal diligence. Solimar Valuation Technologyprovides an estimated value for a specific residential property in real time, via the Internet. The companies'website addresses are http://www.basis100.com and http://www.gmacrfc.com.

Dorado Corp., San Mateo, Calif., says it will provide an online collaborative environment for mortgagebrokers who have been approved by GreenPoint Mortgage, New York, as part of a product and service agreement betweenthe two companies. Dorado, an application service provider, will contribute itsRelationship Commerce Platform and an e-Collaborator portal application that has been configured for wholesalemortgage lending. More than 15,000 approved brokers will be able to access GreenPoint's specialty loan productsusing the service, Dorado said. GreenPoint Mortgage is a subsidiary of GreenPoint Financial Corp. The companies'website addresses are http://www.dorado.com and http://www.greenpoint.com.

Precept, Oakland, Calif., has announced the development of a commercial mortgage origination systemand said it has started accepting deals. Precept is an exchange designed for brokers, mortgage lenders, and borrowers.Both Standard & Poor's and Morgan Stanley have made investments in Precept,the company said. Morgan Stanley has agreed to act as a "market maker," effectively ensuring that therewill be bids on certain types of loans. S&P has approved Precept's underwriting process and agreed to providean independent assessment of underwritten cash flow for loans auctioned on the system. The company's website addressis http://www.preceptmortgage.com.

McCracken Financial Software Inc., the Billerica, Mass.-based subsidiary of GMAC Commercial Holding Corp., said a newly formed subsidiary has purchased substantially all the assets of Univest Financial Services LLC for an undisclosed amount. McCracken's subsidiary will use the Univest name, and the executive staffs at both companies will remain the same. McCracken president Frank McCracken said Univest's O2S browser-based underwriting system "complements our existing suite and is in line with our strategy of offering browser-based, ASP solutions." The companies' website addresses are http://www.mccrackenfs.com, http://www.ufsnet.com, and http://www.gmaccm.com.

Cipher Data Resources, Santa Ana, Calif., and Ellie Mae Inc., Pleasanton, Calif., have entered intoa marketing partnership to provide the Cipher1 tax analysis software program to Ellie Mae's customer base of mortgageindustry professionals. Instant access to Cipher1, the first tax analysis programto be offered through Ellie Mae, is available to mortgage professionals who use the Ellie Mae Business Center viaa direct Cipher Data link, the companies said. The companies maintain that the addition of Cipher1 to Ellie Maetools and resources will save time and minimize work disruption. The companies' website addresses are http://www.cipherdata.com and http://www.elliemae.com.

LandAmerica Financial Group Inc., Richmond, Va., has announced that its wholly owned subsidiary, LandAmerica OneStop,will acquire Primis Inc., an Atlanta-based provider of online real estate-related services. The terms of the deal were not disclosed. LandAmerica OneStop provides coordinated title and RE-relatedservices to lenders, builders, real estate agents, and Internet aggregators. Charles H. Foster Jr., chairman andchief executive officer of LandAmerica, said Primis's appraisal unit in the past two years "has gained considerablemarket share, providing a full range of electronic services across the country while building one of the largestappraisal databases of geographically dispersed property information." Primis CEO James Schaper will becomeCEO of LandAmerica OneStop after the merger of Primis into its operations, and the company will be based in Primis'sAtlanta headquarters. Major title and closing fulfillment service centers will be located in Richmond, Va.; Dallas;and Orange County, California. The companies' website addresses are http://www.landam.com and http://www.primis.com.

Capital Z Financial Services Fund II, New York, has purchased approximately 1.2 million shares ofLendingTree common stock at $7.98 per share and received warrants to purchase an additional 360,000 shares of commonstock at the same price, for a total investment of $10 million. The investmentincreases Capital Z's position as LendingTree's largest shareholder from 21.2% to 26.2%. Capital Z retains theright to receive additional shares of LendingTree common stock at a lower price if LendingTree raises additionalfunds. LendingTree's website address is http://www.lendingtree.com.

Dorado, San Mateo, Calif., and OnePipeline, Salt Lake City, have announced that they will integrateOnePipeline's third-party automated loan origination compliance system and Dorado's relationship commerce technologyinto Web-based sales and marketing systems for real estate offices. The serviceis designed to enable real estate agents to begin the loan origination process for clients, collaborate via theInternet with a broker's affiliate mortgage company, and receive compensation for the services they provide. Thecompanies said the offering will allow real estate agents to meet all state and federal laws and professional regulationswhile performing loan origination services. The companies' website addresses are http://www.dorado.com and http://www.onepipeline.com .

TradeWeb LLC, New York, has expanded its services to allow institutional investors to trade U.S.agency-issued securities and selected securities of supranational issuers with TradeWeb dealers. The product launch follows a four-month beta test that included live trading between six major bond dealersand more than 50 institutional investors, the company said. Trading volume exceeded $6 billion per month, and involvedsecurities issued by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Federal Home Loan Banks, the World Bank, the Inter-American DevelopmentBank, and the Asian Development Bank. The six global investment banks that took part in the beta test -- CreditSuisse First Boston, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, and Salomon SmithBarney -- have agreed to act as market makers for the new online agency market. "The U.S. Agency market, with morethan $1.7 trillion of debt outstanding and new, large bond issues coming on a regular basis, is a huge market opportunityfor TradeWeb," said Jim Toffey, president and chief executive officer of TradeWeb.

Fiserv Inc., Brookfield, Wis., has announced the acquisition of National Flood Services Inc., Kalispell,Mont., a provider of flood policy administration services to the insurance industry. Theterms of the deal were not disclosed. NFS is a third-party administrator for companies participating in the NationalFlood Insurance Program. Fiserv is a provider of information technology to the financial industry. Its websiteaddress is http://www.fiserv.com.

Freddie Mac has announced the successful purchase of an all-electronic mortgage. The mortgage was originated in Utah and made legally binding through the Electronic Signatures in Globaland National Commerce (E-SIGN) Act, which went into effect Oct. 1. Mountain America Credit Union, Salt Lake City,originated and closed the mortgage, and CUNA Mutual Mortgage Corp., Madison, Wis., is servicing it. The participantsused Digital Handshake technology from iLumin Corp. for the transaction. The Orem, Utah-based iLumin recently launchedDigital Handshake Server, which is designed for secure, private, legally binding, start-to-finish online transactions.Digital Handshake has been in a pilot-testing phase since June and currently includes partners Trans Union LLC;GMAC Mortgage; Bank of America; Stewart Title; and H&R Block Mortgage Corp. Organization and company websiteaddresses are http://www.freddiemac.com, http://www.mtnamerica.org, http://www.cunamutual.com, and http://www.ilumin.com.

Thirteen leading commercial property companies have signed an agreement to establish Office Technology Consortium "to improve business processes, drive tenant values, and strive to improve industry service standards." The founding members of the consortium are: Boston Properties, Brookfield Properties Corp., CarrAmerica Realty Corp., Crescent Real Estate Equities Co., Duke-Weeks Realty Corp., Highwoods Realty LP, Hines, Mack-Cali Realty Corp., Oxford Properties Group, Prentiss Properties Trust, Shorenstein Co., TrizecHahn Office Properties, and Vornado Realty Trust. These companies own or manage over 400 million square feet of office space in North America on a combined basis. Initially, the consortium will concentrate on two key initiatives: the first will be an online "Landlord Procurement Exchange" aimed at lowering landlord and tenant operating costs and increasing rental value; the second will be an online "Leasing Exchange" that will enable customers to make informed leasing decisions.

Mortgage lending giant Countrywide Home Loans, Calabasas, CA and electronic billing and payment provider CheckFree, Atlanta have reported that the former has made the latter's technology available to its 2.4 million customers across the United States. The technology allows Countrywide customers to pay their mortgage and home equity bills through a number of CheckFree-supported websites including Yahoo,the U.S. Postal Service, WingspanBank.com and CheckFree E-Bill Direct. Once enrolled, Countrywide customers receive one finalpaper bill by mail and then all future bills electronically. Customers can then view their bill on demand, review current and outstanding account balances and access full bill detail from their personal computer. Electronic payments made to Countrywide Home Loans will be processed by CheckFree Genesis 2000, an electronic billing and payment engine that allows billers to view, track and report the status of billing and payment events . All transactions are backed by a guarantee from CheckFree that protects consumers against unauthorized transactions or processing delays. Countrywide's website address is http://www.countrywide.com. and CheckFree Corp's is http://www.checkfree.com.

California Commissioner of Financial Institutions Walter J. Mix III has announced the implementation of a process to enable consumers to detect and report suspicious financial institution websites.The Department of Financial Institutions added procedures and a report format to its website that will permit the public to identify and report any site that may be falsely representing itself as a licensed California financial institution. The department is concerned that some may use the anonymity of the Internet to defraud consumers. The DFI's Internet address is http://www.dfi.ca.gov.

London Bridge Software Holdings plc, London, has acquired CheckFree's Mortgage Products Division and intends to make it part of the firm's North American operation, LBSS Inc. Based in Atlanta, LBSS provides a range of mortgage software products from residential construction and origination to servicing and default management.LBSS hopes that the acquisition will provide an opportunity to cross-sell distressed debt products to large banking customers. The company called the acquisition "another clear sign of London Bridge's growing commitment to success in the U.S. software business."

FiTech Systems Lending Division, Greensboro, North Carolina, and Freddie Mac have teamed up in an effort to further streamline the loan origination process.The companies made the announcement at the MBA's 85th annual convention in Chicago. Under the initiative, FiTech's loan origination system will be interfaced to Freddie's Loan Prospector and the companies will share and develop several technologies, such as workflow automation. "The ultimate goal," according to Bob Ryan, Freddie Mac's vice president of marketing, "is to make the entire lending process easier and less obtrusive for the borrower." Freddie Mac's Internet address is http://www.freddiemac.com.

Fannie Mae has expanded its main website (http://www.fanniemae.com) and turned it into a business-to-business site that includes a new electronic news service and "push" technology that allows industry partners to receive Fannie Mae announcements automatically."The reincarnation of fanniemae.com as a business-to-business site is an important and logical next step in providing our lenders and other industry partners with leading-edge technology tools that help them transact business more efficiently," said John Buckley, Fannie Mae's senior vice president for communications. The site is organized into five sections: current investor information, business applications and forms, general information, a resource guide for the news media, and an employment opportunities database. Fanniemae.com is hyperlinked to HomePath.com (http://www.homepath.com), Fannie Mae's website for consumers seeking information on the mortgage process and Fannie Mae products.

Finet Holdings Corp., an electronic commerce company based in San Francisco, has restated its financial results for the fiscal quarter ended July 31, reporting a consolidated net loss from operations of $2.5 million, compared with a $5.3 million loss in the previous quarter.Revenues increased to $7.8 million, up 533% from $1.2 million a year earlier. After restating for the pooling-of-interests acquisition of Coastal Federal Mortgage Co. and the acquisition of Mical Mortgage Inc., consolidated quarterly revenues were up 108%, Finet said. Coastal contributed $1.8 million in revenues and Mical contributed $2.5 million, while the rest of Finet's operations contributed $3.5 million, up 189% from a year earlier, the company said. Consolidated loan volume totaled $401 million for the quarter, up 385% from a year earlier.

Commonwealth Mortgage Assurance Co., Philadelphia, has introduced an online service that enables lenders to obtain mortgage insurance in seconds, according to CMAC.MI Online, a feature of CMAC's customer information and access system ServiceLink, will be available nationwide this fall, the company said. "With ServiceLink, [lenders] can access their account 24 hours a day to perform servicing transfers, cancel mortgage insurance coverage, print certificates, and more," said Lora L. Wasson, CMAC's director of product marketing. "Now, using the new MI Online feature, our customers can obtain mortgage insurance on demand." CMAC is the operating subsidiary of CMAC Investment Corp. CMAC's website address is http://www.cmacmi.com.

Alltel Information Corp., Jacksonville, Fla., may be talking to Dovenmuehle Mortgage, Schaumburg, Ill., the nation's largest subservicer, about a possible purchase of the company, sources have told MortgageWire.Alltel operates the largest service bureau for residential servicers. A Dovenmuehle spokesman would not comment on the matter, and Alltel officials did not return telephone calls. At the end of June Dovenmuehle subserviced $26.41 billion in loans, according to the Database Products Group, a MortgageWire affiliate. (Dovenmuehle has owned servicing of just $338 million.) Last year EDS, a technology firm, bought Wendover Funding, Greensboro, N.C., another large subservicer.