Technology

Bank of the West, one of the nation's 25 largest banks, is automating its commercial loan origination process using ILog JRules, a key offering in ILog's Business Rule Management System product line.The announcement comes after an 18-month search and implementation process. Bank of the West said it expects to compress the average approval time to five hours from the three-to-five days it now takes with a manual process, significantly increasing its service level. The bank pilot-tested 300 users out of a total population of 1,000 salespeople and business bankers who would ultimately use the system, taking eight weeks to "work out the kinks and deal with any unforeseen issues." The bank said it expects to do its full production rollout by the end of August. Bank of the West can be found online at http://www.bankofthewest.com, and ILog can be found at http://www.ilog.com.

Interactive communications specialist Varolii Corp. has announced that BOK Mortgage, a division of $18 billion multibank holding company BOK Financial, is now using Varolii's interactive collections system to reduce its mortgage delinquency ratio.Since adding Varolii to its mortgage collections process, BOK Mortgage has realized a 12% reduction in its mortgage delinquency ratio, according to the announcement. BOK Mortgage leverages the Varolii platform to automate much of the communications process around early-stage delinquencies, enabling the company to focus its contact center resources on more complex, high-priority accounts. Seattle-based Varolii can be found online at http://www.varolii.com, and BOK Financial can be found at http://www.bokf.com.

Starting July 22, Fannie Mae's automated underwriting system will alert lenders if the collateral for a mortgage is located in an area where house prices are declining.In such cases, Fannie's Desktop Underwriter will send a message to lenders that they need to carefully review the appraisal to ensure its accuracy and require additional information from the appraiser, if necessary. Appraisers should describe market trends and the effects it will have on the value of the property, Fannie says in an announcement to its seller/servicers. "It is unacceptable for the appraiser to ignore these issues and not report the factual property value trends and market conditions," Announcement 07-11 says. The government-sponsored enterprise can be found online at http://www.fanniemae.com.

Capital Markets Cooperative, Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., has announced an alliance with Fannie Mae aimed at providing CMC members greater benefits when selling loans to the secondary market.CMC members will now have access to Fannie Mae's Desktop Underwriter platform in addition to advantageous pricing, increased flexibility in methods of execution, and a variety of loan products and value-added services, CMC said. "[O]ur clients now have greater flexibility and receive better pricing on the loans they sell upstream to Fannie Mae," said CMC president Tom Millon. "They'll also pay lower fees to use Desktop Underwriter." CMC, a provider of services aimed at reducing risk and maximizing profits for mortgage bankers, can be found online at http://www.capmkts.org, and Fannie Mae can be found at http://www.fanniemae.com.

Visre Inc., Jacksonville, Fla., has announced that it will provide appraisal software firms, automated valuation model providers, and mortgage lenders immediate accessibility to millions of auditable residential photos through its Residential Appraisal Image Library.Geo-coded to property addresses, Visre can deliver singular 2-megapixel parcel photos as well as larger panoramas blended from multiple photos to showcase subject properties, comparable properties, and neighboring parcels. Historically, calls to include imagery in AVMs have been slow to materialize as providers have only recently begun exploring how valuations can be photo-enhanced without affecting critical response times. Offering benefits to appraisal software developers and AVM providers, Visre's RAIL solution provides clients an API for rapid software integration. Visre said it sees street-level video as the next step in evolving property appraisals. The company can be found online at http://www.visre.com.

Dorado Corp., a mortgage technology provider based in San Mateo, Calif., has entered a strategic alliance with First Canadian Title.Under the agreement between the two companies, First Canadian Title will be the exclusive distributor of Dorado's Enterprise Lending System to mortgage lenders and banks in Canada, and the Canadian company will not distribute any other companies' loan origination technology. "Dorado's on-demand loan origination technology is a complementary component to Canadian Title's end-to-end integrated lending solution," said David Wybrow, senior vice president of First Canadian Title.

Large lenders eager to leverage service-oriented architecture to extend their return on investment from legacy systems, take note: Los Gatos Calif.-based Fiorano Software Inc. has announced a collaboration with mainframe integration specialist GT Software, Atlanta.Technical support staff from GT Software will facilitate enterprise integration of mainframe assets for customers of Fiorano SOA 2007, the companies said. The collaboration is intended "to simplify SOA-based integration in extremely complex environments, enabling developers to establish services more easily and integrate mainframe data of all types into the Fiorano platform," they said. The platform utilizes 60 pre-built business components and data adapters to build fully functional workflows, addressing the mortgage-creation process from first application to post-closing and delivery. The companies can be found online at http://www.fiorano.com and http://www.gtsoftware.com.

Jess Hartmann has been named president of Mortgage Coach, a provider of mortgage planning software based in Irvine, Calif.Mr. Hartmann was most recently the chief executive officer of ISD Corp., a software development and services firm. Before joining ISD, he was the senior vice president and chief information officer at New Horizons, which Mortgage Coach said is the largest information technology training company in the world. The company pointed to Mr. Hartmann's "proven track record" of expanding companies and said it plans to use his expertise "to further penetrate the mortgage market and capitalize on the vast potential caused by the growing trend toward mortgage planning." Mortgage Coach can be found online at http://www.mortgagecoach.com.

Irvine, Calif.-based Mortgage Coach and Strategic Equity, Bellevue, Wash., have teamed up to create Equity Optimizer, a Web-based tool to help teach borrowers the importance of mortgage planning rather than simply acquiring a loan based on interest rates and fees.Equity Optimizer is based on Mortgage Coach's Marketing Machine, and features Steven Marshall's six-step scripted process to guide mortgage planners in the initial stages of educating potential borrowers on the principles of mortgage planning. Mr. Marshall is a mortgage planner and the founder of Strategic Equity. The program also features the tools already available on the Mortgage Coach Marketing Machine system, featuring the Personalized Mortgage Plan, the Annual Equity Review, and the Periodic Mortgage Review. Each of the products is supported by advice-delivery tools and printable marketing pieces that include explanations of Mortgage Coach's patented reports. The companies can be found on the Web at http://www.mortgagecoach.com and http://www.strategicequity.com.

In response to growing demand for reverse mortgages, Wolters Kluwer Financial Services, Minneapolis, is equipping lenders with a new line of electronic documents they can use to help comply with regulatory requirements tied to Home Equity Conversion Mortgages.A HECM, the most common form of reverse mortgage in the United States, allows borrowers aged 62 or older to convert the equity in their homes into income through a lump sum, monthly payments, or a line of credit offered by lenders. The WKFS line of electronic upfront disclosures and closing documents for HECMs allows lenders doing business in the top 10 states underwriting HECMs to create compliant document packages. The top 10 states are: California, Florida, Texas, New York, Michigan, New Jersey, Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania. The company plans to expand its HECM document line to other states based upon lender demand. WKFS can be found on the Web at http://www.wolterskluwerfs.com.