Technology

A pilot program aimed at the nation's estimated 6.8 million non-owners with "thin" credit files is being tested in the nation's capital, where an alliance of public and private entities have pledged $200 million to get the initiative started.Under the R-Home program, consumers who are often unable to qualify for financing under traditional underwriting guidelines or are steered toward high-price loans will be qualified using an innovative automated program powered by Anthem, First American Corp.'s alternative credit-evaluation model. CitiMortgage will buy loans generated by nonprofit and private-sector participants and sell them on the secondary market, but retain the servicing rights. Borrowers will be counseled before the purchase, and counseling will be made available afterwards if they have trouble making payments. If problems persist longer than 60 days, the Neighborhood Housing Services of America says it will repurchase the loans and work "personally and patiently" with borrowers to get them back on track. "We see this as a model of how all borrowers should be supported, not just low-income borrowers," said Mary Lee Widener, president of NHSA.

Livonia, Mich.-based Flagstar Bank has gone live with mortgage closings using electronic signatures, and was preparing to sell its first e-mortgage the afternoon of Oct. 4.The most common misconception about e-closings is that the e-signed closing requires additional hardware, but Flagstar is doing a click-sign that can be done with an everyday computer mouse. Beyond the benefits that go along with e-signing itself, as part of post-closing, Flagstar automatically pre-populates the necessary data to answer all needed post-closing questions. Most of those questions are cleared automatically by the data transfer itself and come up with a "cleared" message to the post-closer. This eliminates the need for manual post-closing and mitigates the chance of buybacks by the investor. Flagstar says it is committed to e-mortgages as a business philosophy and will start small, but quickly ramp up to doing heavy e-closing production.

Ellie Mae has announced that Encompass Banker Edition is now available as a hosted system., enabling mortgage bankers and brokers-becoming-bankers to leverage the software on a pay-as-you-go model without having to maintain it in-house.As a hosted system, Encompass Banker Edition allows mortgage bankers to take advantage of Encompass without expending the cost and time associated with deploying and maintaining the software and the necessary computer servers. Moreover, the Encompass Anywhere platform is also being upgraded to offer improved streaming technology, Ellie Mae said. "Bankers, and brokers considering becoming bankers, are ideal candidates for the Encompass Anywhere platform," said Jonathan Corr, chief strategy officer of Ellie Mae. "With Encompass Banker Edition's hosted solution, companies get the same high-quality solution that Banker Edition provides, but with the convenience and lower up-front cost of a software-as-a-service model." Ellie Mae, based in Dublin, Calif., can be found online at http://www.elliemae.com.

The Mortgage Bankers Association has established a new residential technology forum dedicated to identifying and discussing issues pertinent to residential software and service providers.The Residential Technology Providers Forum is intended to provide a broader membership opportunity for technology providers than the current Residential Technology Software and Services Subcommittee, which will cease to exist, the MBA said. Enrollment for the forum will be open through Oct. 12 and is limited to one representative per company, or one per division of larger conglomerate companies. The association can be found online at http://www.mortgagebankers.org.

The Office of Thrift Supervision has closed NetBank in Alpharetta, Ga., after the $2.5 billion thrift sustained "significant losses" in its mortgage banking business and was unsuccessful in completing a private sale.NetBank, which opened as an Internet bank in 1997, is still solvent, but the OTS said the depository had no remaining prospects for raising capital or achieving profitability. "While the institution continued to operate in excess of minimum capital standards, the actions taken to address these problems were unsuccessful and it became clear that high operating expenses combined with continuing losses were jeopardizing the institution's viability," the regulator said. As the receiver, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. has arranged for ING Bank, Wilmington, Del., to assume the insured deposits. The Internet bank had $109 million in uninsured deposits, and those depositors will become creditors of the receivership. Meanwhile, EverBank, Jacksonville, Fla., has agreed to purchase $700 million in mortgages and the FDIC will retain $1.1 billion in assets. The FDIC says it expects the bank failure to cost the Deposit Insurance Fund $110 million.

Intellidyn Corp., a Hingham, Mass.-based marketing firm, has announced that it now enables clients to identify and target refinance offers to homeowners currently in the market who had originated with lenders that no longer exist."Years of business intelligence data show that typically 50% to 60% of refinance borrowers return to their prior lender for refinancing," said Intellidyn president and chief executive officer Peter Harvey. "But now more than 130 of those lenders have 'imploded' and disappeared from the landscape. Identifying these homeowners, then targeting them with appropriate offers when they are in-market to refinance again creates a mini-boom-type niche that won't last very long. By enabling our clients to capture this opportunity in a timely manner, Intellidyn is providing a critical survival mechanism to bolster lenders facing a challenging fourth quarter." Intellidyn can be found on the Web at http://www.intellidyn.com.

Peter Muriungi has been named senior vice president at EMC Mortgage, Lewisville, Texas, and he will head the company's Financial Analytics and Structured Transactions (F.A.S.T.) and business information teams.Since joining EMC in 1999, Mr. Muriungi has been involved with the development and deployment of default risk models, deal performance analytics, and other valuation models as part of the F.A.S.T. and business information groups. EMC, a subsidiary of Bear Stearns, developed the F.A.S.T. system.

ARC Systems of Austin, Texas -- which offers loan underwriting and related software to mortgage bankers -- is considering selling the company, or what its president calls "our intellectual property."Company chief executive and founder Ed Jones said the technology provider has not yet hired an investment banker to represent it. "We're a clean company," he said. "We have no debt." Founded in 1984, ARC flourished during the subprime boom as lenders and investors bought its software to analyze nonconforming loans. Over the past year, some of its mortgage banking clients have either exited the nonprime niche or filed for bankruptcy protection. LendTech is one of its software products. The company can be found online at http://www.arcsystems.com.

Axis Financial, a Seattle-based company that bills itself as a one-stop shop for construction loans, has announced the launch of a new website.Tyler Simmonds, a principal partner in the company, said the Pacific Northwest and the Inland Empire are still growing, contributing to the company's expansion. "You will find that most mortgage brokers and loan officers don't understand the construction process, and shy away from these transactions," he said. Axis Financial's new website can be found online at http://www.wefundconstruction.com.

San Francisco-based Compass Analytics LLC has announced the release of its Mortgage Servicing Rights Analytics to provide loan-level and aggregated modeling capabilities for mortgage servicers and servicing investors.The MSR Analytics, developed with input from Denver-based MountainView Servicing Group, will be released as a fully integrated part of Compass's mortgage analytics platform CompassPoint. The system will include both static and option-adjusted spread valuations and will allow analysts to use loan-level adjusters on all models, include integration to industry-standard prepayment models, integrate accounting functionality, and include speed-enhancing parallel processing. According to the announcement, the MSR Analytics will be available for hosted and installation implementations. A specific MSR Trading option will also be available. The company can be found online at http://www.compass-analytics.com.