Technology

ATM Corp., a Pittsburgh-based provider of settlement solutions, has joined forces with Equifax to launch a national settlement services company. The companies said that Equifax Settlement Services will provide a complete set of mortgage settlement offerings, including title, closing and appraisal services. "The introduction of Equifax Settlement Services enables us to provide a centralized resource to meet the growing settlement needs of our mortgage lending customers," said Dann Adams, group executive, Equifax North America Information Services. "This new venture is an important step in establishing Equifax's comprehensive suite of end-to-end mortgage solutions." ATM Corporation is the holding company for Vision Global Solutions, which helps lenders build settlement service subsidiaries.

The mortgage lenders that will stay in business are those spending on tech right now, said MBA chief economist Doug Duncan at a press briefing at the MBA tech conference now underway in San Diego.While the cost per loan spent on production technology rose year over year from an estimated $99 for 2004 to $119 for 2005, he said the smart companies are choosing to reinvest in technology between the end of the refinancing boom and the time when declining loan volumes put the brakes on new technology projects. The MBA MISMO e-mortgage group announced several new releases, including an e-mortgage closing guide, and an e-closing cost benefit analysis white paper showing how to calculate the ROI for e-closings. Responding to growing concerns over security, MISMO also issued a white paper on data security.

GMAC Residential Funding, Minneapolis, has launched an enhanced version of its Assetwise Compliance Engine.The latest version has been integrated with ComplianceAnalyzer, a compliance tool developed by ComplianceEase, a Bay Area-based company. GMAC Residential Funding lending partners that use ComplianceEase will be able to access the Assetwise Compliance engine as part of their ComplianceEase subscription. ComplianceEase users will now be given an option to receive a free Assetwise Compliance Engine findings report. The complimentary report will indicate if the loan may be eligible for purchase by GMAC Residential Funding. "Our partnership with GMAC Residential Funding has empowered mortgage lenders with an effective tool with which to determine loan compliance," said Dave Girling, executive vice president of ComplianceEase. "Our integrated compliance solution was developed to specifically address the needs of mortgage lenders by making the loan origination process more efficient, and by helping to increase profitability in an increasingly competitive market." For more information about ComplianceEase, visit http://www.ComplianceEase.com, while the website for the parent of GMAC Residential Funding, Residential Capital Corp. is located at https://www.rescapholdings.com.

Synergistic Technologies, MRG Document Technologies and World Wide Notary formed an alliance by which the three companies will jointly offer mortgage lenders an end-to-end e-mortgage solution.At the MBA tech show the companies said that they will combine their respective solutions and expertise in document preparation and delivery, document imaging and management and electronic signatures to streamline paper-based loan processes for mortgage lenders while providing them with a flexible, iterative e-mortgage migration strategy that includes automated loan processing workflow, online document sharing, secure, hosted document management, and electronic signing.

At the MBA tech show, Fiserv noted that both its easyLENDER and UniFi PRO loan origination systems have received certification for credit reporting and mortgage insurance application through the MXCompliance service, an eXtensible Markup Language-based compliance process developed by MISMO.MISMO, a not-for-profit subsidiary of the Mortgage Bankers Association, develops mortgage data-exchange and file-specification standards for lenders and mortgage technology providers. This move signals that Fiserv, one of the largest technology vendors in the mortgage space, is making efforts to endorse industry standards within their products to make it easier for users to integrate with other products and services. Other MISMO certifications are forthcoming including automated underwriting and e-mortgage certifications.

In more news from the MBA Tech Show, Calyx Software has embarked on a strategic mission to both support the MISMO standards and become a more fully integrated solution.Through the release of four products, DirectConnect, WebConnect, Loan Bridge and Point SDK, Point users will be able to use Point in a variety of ways to integrate other software solutions, connect to lenders and order various settlement services. The most recent of the three products, Point SDK, which will be released in June, is in direct response to the industry's need to integrate with various third-party solutions and providers. This new product will allow Point users to use a common SDK to create more seamless integrations. Vendors can also purchase the SDK, but it can only be used in conjunction with a Point owner's SDK.

An army of Freddie Mac-ers is scouring the vendor halls at the Mortgage Bankers Association's National Technology in Mortgage Banking Conference now underway in San Diego.Freddie is using the conference to pursue its new strategy of meeting its technology needs with out-of-the-box products. Pegging this "sea change" to its previous policy of building in-house, Freddie Mac officials said this new initiative would be matched by an effort to broaden its search for new technology personnel beyond the Beltway to markets such as Chicago, where it already has regional offices. Freddie tied the new initiative to its embrace of e-mortgages and service-oriented architecture. The company's website is http://www.freddiemac.com.

INREEX, formally the International Real Estate Exchange, announced that its stock has begun trading as a Pink Sheet issue under the symbol IRXI.INNREEX, based in London, describes itself as a real estate prediction exchange to meet the needs of global real estate investors. "Our goal as a company is to efficiently create an online real estate speculation exchange," said Paul Rozenberg, CEO of the company. He said the system is designed to be as close as possible to stock market trading. The electronic exchange trades contracts of all 50 U.S. states as well as a USA contract reminiscent of a stock index. The contracts are based on official home price index data published by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight. The company's trading technology allows investors to log in from anywhere in the world and buy, sell or short housing markets in the U.S.

Responding to widespread interest in technology that improves the correspondent-investor transaction, Irvine, Calif.-based Commerce Velocity has announced the launch of a correspondent module that enables lenders to accept and then automatically decision and price loans submitted in flow, batch, or bulk mode.The module lets lenders offer their sellers customized portal views featuring simultaneous side-by-side spot, commitment, and bulk pricing capability. The module's customizable pipeline views highlight "next step" activities for each unique role/user, and allow lenders to monitor activity for correspondents, investors, and third-party service providers. Commerce Velocity said an unnamed Wall Street conduit will be implementing the system this spring, with another lender scheduled to implement in June. The company will be demonstrating the module at the MBA Technology Conference March 29-31 in San Diego. It can be found online at http://www.cvelocity.com.

International Document Services Inc., Salt Lake City, and Byte Software, Kirkland, Wash., have announced an alliance that offers mortgage professionals new options for legally compliant closing documents.The partnership creates "a seamless interface" between the idsDoc closing system and the BytePro loan origination system, the companies said. IDS president Curt Doman said the interface "will give Byte's customers a fully customizable document system, providing more time to originate loans." The companies can be found on the Web at http://www.idsdoc.com and http://www.byte-cbc.com.