Mortgage technology

American Management Systems, Fairfax, Va., has announced the successful implementation of Amerin VIA, a Web interface that provides integrated links to Amerin Guaranty Corp.'s existing back-office functions.Through the new online system, lenders can inquire about the status of insured loans, payments, and coverage details. The technology allows Amerin's staff to focus on more intricate questions, as opposed to routine requests. American Management's website address is http://www.amsinc.com.

Freddie Mac has made a $100,000 commitment to the Mortgage Bankers Association's Year 2000 testing plan, the MBA has announced.The MBA Year 2000 Inter-System Readiness Test Plan is a multimillion-dollar voluntary program under which firms will test their systems with those of trading partners in a Year 2000 business environment. "At Freddie Mac, we've made Year 2000 readiness our top corporate priority," said James Cotton, Freddie Mac's vice president of Year 2000 Primary Markets. "We believe that the MBA Inter-System Readiness Test is an important and necessary step toward ensuring readiness for us and the mortgage finance industry." The plan, developed by the MBA Year 2000 Inter-Industry Test Subgroup, has also received $100,000 commitments from Alltel, Fannie Mae, and First American Real Estate Services. It will include test transactions relating to 15 critical business functions in origination, secondary marketing, and servicing, the MBA said. The test is scheduled to begin early next year.

Wells Fargo and BankAmerica are now offering borrowers Internet access to home equity loans.So far Wells Fargo has approved 1,600 applicants, totaling $10 million. Eventually, the San Francisco-based banks are expected to expand the service to mortgages, credit cards, and other loans. Wells Fargo reports that 28% of its home equity loans made through the Internet were to non-bank customers, compared with 20% through the bank's branches. "Customers don't care if they have an existing relationship as long as the bank is willing to lend them money," says Karen Shapiro, senior vice president and online channel manager at BankAmerica. Wells Fargo's website address is http://wellsfargo.com/home, and BankAmerica's is http://www.bofa.com.

GE Capital Mortgage Insurance Company, Raleigh N.C., announces several Internet applications designed for its lender and servicer customers.GE Mortgage Insurance Connect (www.gemiconnect.com) provides its Excel lenders with the ability to receive new commitments in a paperless environment. GE Mortgage Insurance Connest's Certiprint feature allows lenders and servicers to print mortgage insurance certificates or commitments for new and existing loans. The company reports that is processes 1,000 transactions per day on Certilink, including servicing transfers, claims, loan status reporting, account maintenance and billing. Certilink is used by more than 200 servicers.

James Noack, president of Monument Mortgage, a Finet company based in Walnut Creek, Calif., has resigned from his post but will remain a consultant to the company.The company said Mr. Noack plans to concentrate on unspecified entrepreneurial opportunities. Mr. Noack was instrumental in the development of Iqualify, an Internet site that offers borrowers the chance to receive an automated underwriting decision.

HomeShark Inc., a San Francisco-based online discount mortgage broker and national home listings service, will close its third round of financing next week, MortgageWire has learned.The $20 million round will be co-led by industry leaders Weiss, Peck & Greer Venture Partners and Hyperion Partners. HomeShark's website address is http://www.homeshark.com.

The announcement of management changes at LendingTree, the Internet lender based in Charlotte, N.C., has fueled rumors that the company is positioning itself for a possible IPO.LendingTree's chief executive officer, Doug Lebda, told MortgageWire that the company faces no funding problems, but he termed all financial options "viable" and did not quibble with rumors that a funding deal could come as early as the next 12-18 months. Mitchell York has been named president of LendingTree and Gene Lockhart, a former CEO of Mastercard International, has joined LendingTree's board of directors. Mr. York will be responsible for LendingTree's day-to-day operations. Prior to joining LendingTree, Mr. York was a vice president at CMP Media Inc., a technology publisher and media company. Mr. Lebda, who founded LendingTree, assumed the CEO post in connection with the other management changes. He said he will now focus on the strategic growth of the company, including increasing the number of lenders that list their products on the site. LendingTree's website address is http://www.lendingtree.com.

Online mortgage broker E-Loan, Palo Alto, Calif., has been selected by Bank Rate Monitor to provide additional mortgage qualification services to its website.The co-branded mortgage center will offer consumers access to a larger number of national and regional lenders, E-Loan said. By linking to the center from Bank Rate Monitor's home page (http://www.bankrate.com), consumers can access E-Loan's personalized features to help them decide on the best mortgage financing option and then complete the entire loan transaction online, E-Loan said. E-Loan's website address is http://www.eloan.com.

E-Loan, NetNoir--The Black Network, and the Los Angeles Urban League have announced a pilot program aimed at promoting home ownership and computer access among African Americans in Los Angeles.The program, Black Homes Online, will help people take advantage of Community Reinvestment Act mortgage loans. E-Loan, an online mortgage broker, has set up a CRA mortgage center at the pilot's website (http://www.blackhomes.com). People who apply for and obtain a CRA loan through the site will receive a free IBM computer and free Internet access for a year through NetNoir. Those who do not have access to a computer can take advantage of the program by using any one of three centers provided by the Los Angeles Urban League for program applicants. E-Loan's website address is http://www.eloan.com.

Alltel has donated $100,000 to the Mortgage Bankers Association of America's year-2000 readiness testing program.The contribution by the Jacksonville, Fla.-based software company will sponsor a portion of the MBA's Y2K testing that will facilitate coordination among third parties. "Coordinating the Y2K industry test is the best way to leverage resources and help protect our industry," said MBA executive vice president Paul Reid in lauding Alltel's commitment. The MBA's Year 2000 Industry-Wide Readiness Testing grew out of a subgroup of its Year 2000 Technology Committee. The subgroup is chaired by Lauren Meadows, Alltel's vice president of application development for its Mortgage Servicing Package. Alltel's website address is http://www.alltel.com.

Consolidation will continue in the mortgage banking industry, and low profit margins, high leverage, and growing subprime originations will weaken a "relatively stable" credit profile overall for conventional mortgage bankers, according to Moody's Investors Service.In a new industry outlook report, the rating agency said it does not expect near-term downgrades in the industry "primarily due to improved risk management techniques and strong efforts to sustain healthy liquidity." Moody's said the "overwhelming influence" of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is "likely to intensify" as their automated technologies become standard and they expand their presence in the alternative-A and subprime markets. The report noted that much of the consolidation in the past two years has been incidental to commercial banking mergers, but said Moody's believes it will continue "irrespective of what happens" in the commercial banking industry. "Greater competition among mortgage originators, the costs of new technologies, and scale economies in servicing and securitization, make it increasingly difficult for smaller mortgage banks to survive as independent entities," Moody's said. The Moody's website address is http://www.moodys.com.

GetSmart, Burlingame, Calif., has announced the addition of three mortgage lenders to its online borrower's marketplace.Through GetSmart's MortgageFinder, consumers can now apply for loans from Bank One, Crestar, and Norwest Mortgage. The company said it offers one-stop shopping for home and debt consolidation loans, as well as credit card, auto, student, and small business loans. "GetSmart is an easy way for consumers and business owners to shop and compare financing products," said GetSmart CEO Bill Fisher. GetSmart's website address is http://www.getsmart.com.

HomeSeekers.com Inc., Minden, Nev., has acquired Genstar Media, a leading provider of personal websites for real estate agents and mortgage brokers.The acquisition included Genstar's 1,800 clients and the right to use the Genstar name. Genstar president Terry Pullan will continue to head the Genstar division for HomeSeekers.com. Doug Swanson, vice chairman of HomeSeekers.com, said Mr. Pullan developed the first prototype of a personal website for Realtors and mortgage brokers in 1996. Mr. Swanson said Mr. Pullan's "extensive experience in the real estate industry" and the products developed by Genstar "will be powerful additions" to the real estate offerings of HomeSeekers.com. HomeSeekers.com's website address is http://www.homeseekers.com.

Crestar Bank, Richmond, Va., has introduced a specialized website designed to facilitate online applications for home equity loans and offer access to the company's full range of products and services.A glossary of terms, rate and tax information, and a selection of loan terms can be found on the new site. Applicants receive a 10-basis-point discount on the regular interest rate for applying on-line. The site's address is http://www.yourequity.com and can also be accessed through Crestar's homepage (http://www.crestar.com).

Fleet Mortgage Group, Columbia, S.C., has announced an expanded alliance with Cybertek, a Dallas-based software application company, to develop a "next-generation" mortgage origination product.The product, Compass-LX, will incorporate the business rules and infrastructure of Fleet's proprietary Compass system into Cybertek's existing LoanXchange platform, Fleet said. The company said key members of its technical and business analysis team will become Cybertek employees with responsibility for implementing the combined system. "We have found the ideal solution to our technology needs by leveraging the best of two existing systems," said A. William Schenck, Fleet's chairman and CEO. Cybertek is a wholly owned subsidiary of Policy Management Systems Corp. Cybertek's website address is http://www.cybertek.com and PMSC's is http://www.pmsc.com.

Bankers Trust Corp.'s corporate trust and agency services has opened its investor reporting website (http://online.bankerstrust.com/invr).The website provides access to CUSIP-level reporting on nearly 6,000 publicly traded mortgage-backed and asset-backed housing securities. The initial rollout of the website enables users to view and download factor and payment information by payment date, structuring their queries by payment or CUSIP number, or by an entire deal. Several enhancements of the site are already planned for later this year, including additional customized reporting and access to certificate holder statements, collateral, loan level data files, and additional servicing reports provided by the trustee.

Chase Manhattan Mortgage, Edison, N.J., is considering developing its own multilender website, according to Dave Matthews, the company's senior vice president and CIO.Mr. Matthews told MortgageWire that "the growth of the Internet has been faster than anybody in technology, or on the business side, had anticipated." Because of the rapid growth, Chase plans to unveil a new homepage in September that directs borrowers to the site's consumer channel or correspondents to the site's business channel. Over time, Chase plans to phase in technology that allows correspondents to lock in loans online as well as provide borrowers the opportunity to receive a credit decision within 15 or 20 minutes. Mortgage brokers will also be able to access Chase's website from the borrower's kitchen table and receive a lending decision. Chase's website address is http://www.chase.com.

Although the effect of the Internet on the mortgage business remains unclear, one Wall Street analyst views the Internet as a completely new framework for asset origination in the U.S. market.It could lead to "abnormally high concentrations of mortgage assets, at least relative to the fragmented physical world arrangements bankers and borrowers currently know," according to Gary Craft, a senior research analyst for electronic commerce at Robertson Stephens, San Francisco. Mr. Craft's comments were included in a report released to coincide with the company's New Millennium conference. Writing in "Investment Opportunities in Banking's New Age: The Emerging Growth Sector for Mortgage Origination, Structuring, Placement and Trading," Mr. Craft says the notion of "breaking up the banks" is apparent within the mortgage lending industry. "Although banks will remain prominent figures in asset funding, they are likely to yield to non-depository organizations at the earlier point of credit origination, structure and underwriting," he writes. "As they do, these credit organization sites will channel their credit asset flow to potentially new sources that, in turn, will help structure and underwrite the credits for ultimate sale to funding sources."

Interlinq Software Corp., Kirkland, Wash., has released a new information conduit that it says can speed the mortgage-loan process by connecting lenders to an emerging electronic marketplace.The company said its MortgageWare Loan Management System/MortgageWare TC is the first interface to Fannie Mae's MortgageLinks information services platform. Currently, lenders rely on written reports or dial in to credit bureaus using various electronic data exchange standards. The new interface allows "an effortless flow of data in a common data standard, eliminating the need to re-key data," the company said. The software works with MortgageWare LMS version 8.1, which Interlinq recently released. Jim Leone, manager of mortgage information systems for Central Carolina Bank & Trust Co., Durham, N.C., beta-tested the interface and gave it a thumbs-up. "The end user spends less time keying in credit information and has more time to handle exceptions," Mr. Leone said. "It also eliminates the potential for clerical mistakes, which could result in poor underwriting decisions." Interlinq's website address is http://www.interlinq.com.

Mark Korell has resigned as chief executive of IMX Mortgage Exchange, San Ramon, Calif., MortgageWire has learned.He had been with the mortgage technology upstart for a year and resigned for "personal reasons," said IMX executive vice president and founder Stephen Fraser. Mr. Korell joined the company from Norwest Mortgage Corp., Des Moines, Iowa, where he was second in command under Mark Oman. IMX operates a fledgling electronic network that acts as a marriage broker, of sorts, between wholesale mortgage lender/investors and loan originators. More than 3,000 individual loan officers are now on the system and IMX is operating in California, Oregon, and Arizona with plans to enter 10 more top markets by mid-year 1999. Mr. Fraser said IMX is "well capitalized" and noted that the company plans to go public within the next year or so. He said Mr. Korell owns a "huge block" of IMX's privately held shares and will do well if the IPO becomes reality. After Mr. Korell left Norwest he was considered a candidate to manage Fleet Mortgage, a shop that has been in turmoil the past two years. Mr. Korell could not be reached for comment. IMX's website address is http://www.imx-exchange.com.