Technology

Compass Analytics LLC and Standard & Poor's Ratings Services have announced the integration of S&P's Levels credit model and Spire cash flow model into Compass's Mortgage Analytics system, CompassPoint.Customers of the two companies will now have loan-level access to Levels and Spire through CompassPoint for loan valuation, rate sheet generation, best execution, and duration modeling. "Compass's loan-level integration of Levels and Spire is a substantial enhancement to Compass's mortgage valuation and trading analytics, designed to seamlessly integrate the valuation process from mapping of loan data through structured cash flow valuations," said Rob Kessel, managing partner of Compass Analytics. The companies can be found online at http://www.compass-analytics.com and http://www.standardandpoors.com.

Overture Technologies, Bethesda, Md., and Tavant Technologies, Santa Clara, Calif., have announced the launch of a customizable end-to-end lending system for conduits and correspondent lenders.The system will allow conduits "to foster deeper relationships with correspondent partners and dramatically improve the efficiency of loan transactions and securitization operations," the companies said. Overture's Mozart Product Suite enables conduits and correspondents to address their needs in the areas of loan acquisition, best loan execution, securitization, and portfolio management, they said. In related news, Overture also announced a partnership with MortgageHub to provide midsize lenders an "easy and affordable way" to enhance productivity with Mozart's preconfigured, automated pricing, product selection, and underwriting tools. "Now mid-sized lenders can get the power of a big company solution, without the big company price," said Bill Kelvie, Overture's chief executive officer. Overture can be found online at http://www.overturetechnologies.com, and Tavant can be found at http://www.tavant.com.

Ellie Mae, a Dublin, Calif.-based provider of software and services for the mortgage industry, has released Dynamic Loan Screening, which it touts as the industry's first virtual inter-operable platform that matches loan applications with the products and services of lenders, investors, and settlement service providers.The platform automatically identifies matches between borrower data and products, services, and promotions of participating lenders, investors, and service providers as an originator enters data into Encompass, Ellie Mae's mortgage management system. "As the originator inputs loan data into Encompass, that data is continuously monitored, and when a 'match' occurs, an offer is automatically displayed on the originator's loan origination system screen," said Jonathan Corr, Ellie Mae’s chief strategy officer. "For lenders and service providers, it's like having an account executive sitting on the originator's desktop." Dynamic Loan Screening can also screen for compliance and fraud as well as prepayment and early delinquency risks. Ellie Mae can be found online at http://www.elliemae.com.

Addressing pain points currently haunting the mortgage industry, Fort Worth, Texas-based Rapid Reporting has announced major initiatives addressing fraud prevention and buybacks.Rapid Reporting has partnered with collateral valuation and fraud specialist Magellan Lender Services, San Francisco, to give mortgage lenders a complete solution that checks the validity of both borrower and collateral-related data used to evaluate and approve mortgage loan applications. Rapid Reporting will provide borrower-related verifications and Magellan will provide collateral-based verifications to deliver one-stop coverage. Rapid Reporting said it is also offering a Stated Doc Report providing additional IRS-verified information to determine whether information on stated-income loan applications is corroborated by Internal Revenue Service data. No actual numerical data are released in Rapid Reporting's Stated Doc Report, so the integrity of stated-income loans can be maintained.

In an attempt to expand further into the mid-tier, MortgageHub Inc., Conshohocken, Pa., has acquired loan origination vendor Dynatek, Livonia, Mich.The terms of the transaction were not disclosed. The acquisition comes on the heels of MortgageHub's acquisition of the London Bridge properties owned by Fair Isaac. With the Dynatek acquisition, MortgageHub says it now has 550 lender clients. The entire management staff at Dynatek will remain untouched, and the company will maintain its name, branding, and headquarters. MortgageHub said it will add additional sales people to Dynatek's staff and invest considerable research and development funds to speed up the rollout of Titanium, an update of Dynatek's core system that the company has been phasing in over the past year. Chetan Patel, executive vice president of mergers and acquisitions at ISGN Technologies, a major investor in MortgageHub, told Mortgage Wire that MortgageHub plans future acquisitions this year, with the goal of becoming a top-three technology company in the mortgage space within two years. MortgageHub can be found online at http://www.mortgagehub.com.

Interthinx, Agoura Hills, Calif., has released the results of its latest data analysis, which it says can accurately predict which loans will be nonperforming over time.The Interthinx score predicts the likelihood of foreclosure and early payment default. In this study, Interthinx configured and evaluated performance data on over two million loan application records from its database. Through an alliance with one of the top three U.S. credit bureaus, Interthinx analyzed late payments, defaults, and foreclosure data from mortgage trade lines and compared the data with previous scores and red flags for possible mortgage fraud within loan applications. Using the Interthinx scoring system, the analysis quantitatively demonstrated that loans with a low score have a much higher level of risk than loans with a high score, the company said. For example, the risk of foreclosure in the first year is 20 times higher for loans with a score in the 0-200 range than for loans with a score in the 800-1000 range. The statistical analysis was led by Derek Stanford, director of analytics for Interthinx. The company can be found on the Web at http://www.interthinx.com.

Rapid Reporting, Fort Worth, Texas, has added a Taxpayer Summary Report to its flagship IncomeChek income verification product that is designed to reduce underwriting time by auto-populating critical information for income verification.The creation of the product came in response to recent changes in the Internal Revenue Service's method of reporting borrower income data. Effective October 2006, the IRS started providing tax transcripts in a much more detailed format, making the task of locating specific income more laborious. For example, transcripts for a three-year period were previously eight pages long at the most, but now the same data are presented in roughly 20 pages. With the Taxpayer Summary Report, all the critical income data included in those transcripts is sorted and presented in a shorter, easy-to-access format, according to Rapid Reporting. In addition, because the report is customizable and in XML format, users can select critical data most applicable to their business processes and get all of it in one streamlined, easy-to-read page. The company can be found on the Web at http://www.rapidreporting.com.

MortgageFlex Systems Inc. has announced its certification by Freddie Mac as one of only six companies to offer a loan origination system interface that meets the specifications of Loan Prospector, version 4.1.Loan Prospector is Freddie Mac's Web-based automated underwriting system. MortgageFlex said its LoanQuest Residential Lending System automates all functions inherent in the loan origination process from pre-qualification to commitment to secondary marketing. The Processing and Underwriting modules include embedded interfaces to Freddie Mac's Loan Prospector and Fannie Mae's Desktop Underwriter, the company said. MortgageFlex can be found on the Web at http://www.mortgageflex.com.

Atlanta-based Street Resource Group Inc. has announced the launch of the Warehouse Information Network, which offers a loan registry alert tool to prevent fraudulent drawing of funds from multiple warehouse lines simultaneously.WIN is an independent, membership-based collaborative providing "automated risk mitigation services, shared industry information databases, and forums for the exchange of ideas on issues related to mortgage warehouse lending," the company said. According to the announcement, WIN will function as a consortium to develop mortgage warehouse lending standards and practices as well as a vehicle to communicate as a collective group with other industries (title companies, electronic mortgage suppliers, etc.) that affect the business of warehouse lending. At launch, SRG will supply the management, technology, and leadership for the Warehouse Information Network. WIN offers a loan registry alert service to detect inter-warehouse fraud.

Lenders First Choice, Simi Valley, Calif., and Calyx Software, San Jose, Calif., have announced the integration of LFC's title insurance and settlement services application into Calyx Point, which connects loan officers and processors to lenders and service providers.LFC is using the Calyx WebConnect technology, which the companies said ensures compatibility with Point and Point Data Server. "WebConnect allows brokers to launch the LFC transactional website directly from inside Point, enabling users to send and receive loan data without leaving the application," the companies said. "When the LFC application returns data to Point, the loan file to which it pertains is automatically updated, and any supporting documentation is stored with the loan file." The companies can be found online at http://www.lendersfirstchoice.com and http://www.calyxsoftware.com.