Technology

Bensalem, Pa.-based ISGN Corp. said it has increased the flexibility of its LenStar technology, a Web-based attorney and referral communication system for the default management market. ISGN said at the MBA Servicing Conference in Tampa that LenStar's new functionality enables servicers to adapt to market changes. Among the enhancements are an executive dashboard that allows users to create customized views of LenStar reporting data based on their own management criteria. This dashboard provides a complete view of the loan timeline, including vendor and user performance, file status and portfolio management. LenStar also now offers a Referral Toolkit, which can be used to create new referral types such as additional bankruptcy types, litigation, lien monitoring, real estate-owned, loss mitigation and title claims.

Wingspan Portfolio Advisors, a Carrollton, Texas, firm specializing in saving seriously delinquent loans from foreclosure, has selected SigniaDocs' e-vaulting and e-signing capabilities to provide faster service for its loan modification efforts. "One of the most common reasons for loan modifications to fail before they get started is that borrowers will often give up on the transaction during the period between agreeing to the loan modification and signing the paper documents that create the new loan," said Steven Horne, Wingspan Portfolio Advisors' founder and CEO. "With SigniaDocs' eModification service, it all happens very quickly, and speed is essential to making the process work. They allow us to execute loan modifications in minutes by using the Internet and SigniaDocs' eMortgage electronic vault, instead of waiting for courier services." Wingspan Portfolio Advisors works mainly with borrowers who have given up hope because they are so far behind on their payments that lenders have often already begun the foreclosure process. Getting the loan modification executed quickly, Mr. Horne says, is essential to that process.

Loan servicers are incorporating more borrower verifications, such as those validating income and employment, into the evaluation process when considering borrowers for loan modifications according to Rapid Reporting. The Fort Worth, Texas-based vendor said at the MBA Servicing Conference in Tampa that until recently, loan servicers have largely relied on information compiled in loan origination when evaluating borrowers for loan modifications. Verifying income and employment reflects the servicing industry's move toward more thorough underwriting standards as the industry struggles to correct itself amidst the current foreclosure crisis. "We've seen a significant increase in loan servicers that are signing up for income verification for loan modifications, which represents a big change as servicers had previously not been involved with borrower qualifications," said Jay Meadows, chief executive officer of Rapid Reporting. "This indicates that the servicing industry is learning from industry problems and making definitive changes to proactively ensure higher quality loans. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, there is a strong correlation between mortgage fraud and loans that result in default or foreclosure, so it only makes sense to verify borrower information on loans in delinquency to ensure that the modified terms fit the borrower's capacity to repay the loan."

Gabe Minton, the former Mortgage Bankers Association vice president of industry technology and most recently chief operating officer at LOS vendor Mortgage Cadence, has joined Motivity Solutions Inc., a provider of optimization and risk mitigation software for the mortgage industry, as its chief strategy officer. In his new position, Mr. Minton is responsible for the overall strategic sales marketing and licensing of Motivity's products, third party alliances and strategic initiatives. Together with the engineering team, he will assist in further strengthening and expanding the foundation of their products and services. Also, in working closely with Motivity chief executive Tyler Sherman, Mr. Minton will create the architecture for smart imaging, e-mortgages, increased data integrity, and security to strengthen the positioning of Motivity's technology.

Point-of-sale vendor Data-Vision Inc. said it has missed a deadline to reach final agreement with Most Home Corp. on terms for its previously planned acquisition of NetUpdate Inc. Data-Vision president, Randy Schmidt, stated, "Unfortunately, after receiving board acceptance of the terms outlined in our Letter of Intent, the shareholders of Most Home were seeking much greater terms than we were willing to concede given the current market conditions. We are disappointed that the Letter of Intent has expired without being able to reach a definitive agreement." No further details were disclosed at press time. Data-Vision has been serving U.S. lending institutions since 1993 with a suite of Web portal and e-lending applications to facilitate online origination, point-of-sale, lead capture, instant decisioning, product selection, initial disclosures, and secure electronic document delivery to provide immediate returns for lenders.

The Mortgage Bankers Association and MERSCORP Inc. have entered into a management agreement under which MERSCORP will be responsible for managing the day-to-day operations of MISMO, and the MBA has laid off its entire industry technology staff composed of six individuals. Under the management agreement, MBA retains full control of the Mortgage ?Industry Standards Maintenance Organization Inc. and will maintain a permanent seat on the MISMO board of directors. John A. Courson, president and CEO of the association, said, "It has always been the intent for MBA to develop and nurture MISMO and then align with another entity to conduct day-to-day management of the company in a way that best serves the real-estate finance industry. MERS, as an industry utility owned in part by MBA, provides an ideal infrastructure for MISMO and will ensure the user experience of current MISMO participants remains constant at its current high level." Because MERS will now be running MISMO the MBA has laid off its entire industry technology staff including Harry Gardner, the MBA's VP of technology who had been charged with MISMO's oversight. Going forward, the MBA will create a new technology position that the organization expects to fill soon. The six impacted employees will be given preferential treatment if they are interested in applying for the position.

The Mortgage Bankers Association and MERSCORP Inc. have entered into a management agreement under which MERSCORP will be responsible for managing the day-to-day operations of MISMO, and the MBA vice president responsible for the technology standards initiative has left the trade group. Under the management agreement, MBA retains full control of the Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization Inc. and will maintain a permanent seat on the MISMO board of directors. John A. Courson, president and CEO of the association, said, "It has always been the intent for MBA to develop and nurture MISMO and then align with another entity to conduct day-to-day management of the company in a way that best serves the real-estate finance industry. MERS, as an industry utility owned in part by MBA, provides an ideal infrastructure for MISMO and will ensure the user experience of current MISMO participants remains constant at its current high level." When asked how this affected Harry Gardner, the MBA's VP of technology who had been charged with MISMO's oversight, an MBA spokeswoman said he was no longer with the association and referred further comment to trade group executives who were not immediately available Wednesday. Mr. Gardner could not be reached for comment at press time.

The Justice Department says it foiled a plot by a fired Fannie Mae contract worker to destroy all the data on the GSE's 4,000 computer servers nationwide. The worker, 35-year-old Rajendrasinh Makwana, of Glen Allen, Va., is scheduled for arraignment Friday in U.S. District Court in Baltimore on one count of computer intrusion, according to a report in the Associated Press. U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein said Mr. Makwana was fired in late October. The prosecutor said that on that day Mr. Makwana programmed a computer with a malicious code that was set to spread throughout Fannie's network of servers and destroy all the data by the end of January 2009. Mr. Makwana's public defender has yet to comment on the charges.

Global financial services consulting firm Headstrong has acquired business process outsourcing firm Lydian Data Services, Boca Raton, Fla. The sale price was not disclosed, but all LDS staff will be retained as the objective is to grow the LDS business further. However, within the next three to six months the LDS name will be grandfathered and the business unit will be dubbed Headstrong Business Services. With the acquisition of LDS and its platforms, Headstrong will position itself as a consulting firm that can offer a full suite of services from consulting and implementation to mortgage processing to its global clientele. Further, according to Headstrong, the acquisition of LDS will strengthen Headstrong's U.S. operations, through the addition of processing centers in Atlanta and Boca Raton.

Only one-third of financial institutions are using the Internet to send confidential documents to customers, partners and service providers using a secure electronic document delivery solution, according to a recent Wolters Kluwer Financial Services survey. Nearly 62% of the 347 banks, credit unions and mortgage companies responding to the survey said they are using the Internet to transmit confidential documents such as loan disclosures and documents. Of those institutions, however, only one-third say they are using a secure electronic delivery solution. Approximately another third are using traditional e-mail, which does not encrypt customer data. The remainder use less secure document delivery methods such as password protected e-mail and websites, regular or overnight mail, or are not sure of the method they use. According to Jason Marx, vice president and general manager, Mortgage, Wolters Kluwer Financial Services, the recent growth of identity theft and other forms of electronic fraud make it harder to send documents or information safely via traditional mail, e-mail and websites. Even with password protection, he says, fraudsters can hack into these systems to access customer information.