Technology

LSI Credit Services, a division of Fidelity National Financial Inc., Jacksonville, Fla., has released a new point-of-sale website designed to provide originators with increased efficiency and effectiveness in credit services ordering and management processes.The new site provides originators with easy access to LSI Credit Services' products and credit reports and improved ordering functionality for its supplemental credit service offerings, LSI said. An online chat feature has been added to enable customers to discuss questions on products or services with a member of the customer service team in real time. In addition, originators will be able to access LSI Credit Services' accounting department through the chat feature to address online billing questions. Several administrative features have also been incorporated, such as a management reporting feature to provide clients with information, including the number of credit reports ordered, report turn-around times, and management summaries, LSI said. The site also includes a tracking feature that organizes product and service fees by borrower and a component that enables administrative users to add and delete users as needed. The new website can be found online at http://www.lsicredit.com.

Freddie Mac has announced that it will change Loan Prospector to give lenders greater certainty on pricing for A-minus and Caution loans.The changes will enable lenders to use the Loan Prospector Level returned on the Loan Prospector Feedback Certificate to determine their A-minus fees, since the Loan Prospector Level is identical to the fee rate used to calculate the A-minus post-settlement delivery fee that will appear on the monthly invoice, according to Freddie. In addition, the new post-delivery A-minus fee assessment process will cut the time lenders spend reconciling fees for loans sold to Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored enterprise said. The changes are scheduled to take effect May 1.

Freddie Mac and VMP Mortgage Solutions Inc., a Bankers Systems Inc. company, have formed a joint initiative designed to provide mortgage lenders with tools that develop bilingual, state-specific security instruments, notes, and other mortgage documents in English and Spanish.The initiative will also provide bilingual consumer education brochures that address the mortgage process. The companies said the documents will include a primer on the importance of credit and flow into a series of bilingual brochures that explain the lending process. The educational materials will be based on content from Freddie Mac's CreditSmart Español consumer financial literacy curriculum. The materials will be provided by VMP to lenders and by Freddie Mac to community organizations. The materials will also address common misconceptions about banking and homeownership, as well as help consumers better understand their rights and responsibilities, the companies said. The forms will be available in both printed and electronic formats. The companies can be found on the Web at http://www.freddiemac.com and http://www.vmpmtg.com.

The Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization has announced plans to develop a multiservice response that would make it easier to bundle existing standards in one transaction and separate plans to release a way to test e-mortgage standards.Both initiatives are expected to be delivered to market by MISMO by the end of the year, according to Gabe Minton, vice president of industry technology at the Mortgage Bankers Association, MISMO's parent organization. Under the MultiService Request/Response delivery, the user would be able to seamlessly integrate the MISMO standards without having to cross-check for every sector of the process. A more basic compliance tool to test the actual datasets is expected at the MBA Tech Show this March, with the more complicated e-mortgage compliance tool to come by the end of the year, Mr. Minton told the Fourth Annual NHEMA E-Commerce Roundtable in Costa Mesa, Calif. NHEMA -- the National Home Equity Mortgage Association -- can be found online at http://www.nhema.org.

ABN Amro Mortgage Group, Ann Arbor, Mich., has announced that Ford Motor Co. now offers a private-label version of AAMG's Mortgage.com to its employees.Under the arrangement with AAMG's National Lending Center Affinity and Relocation Lending division, Ford employees can access various mortgage lending products and services at a discount through Ford's Intranet, including AAMG's guaranteed OneFeemortgage. OneFee guarantees, at the time the loan's interest rate is locked, all the typical lender-related fees associated with obtaining a mortgage loan, AAMG said.

Fidelity National Financial Inc., Jacksonville, Fla., has announced the addition of new reporting capabilities and a search feature to its BuyBankHomes.com Web portal on foreclosed properties.The new reporting capabilities enable financial institutions to obtain information on their listed properties, including the number of times a property has been displayed or e-mailed to an interested party. The search feature allows brokers to locate properties that have not been distributed to other brokers or agents, FNF said. The portal can be found at http://www.buybankhomes.com.

CreditXpert Inc., a credit analysis and management provider based in Towson, Md., launched a tool for finding inaccuracies in credit files and giving the user the ability to act on them.Specifically, CreditXpert Detective scans an individual's credit data to reveal potential inaccuracies and recommends specific updates that will most significantly improve the person's credit score. It also automatically generates customized instructions and dispute letters. Using the tool's recommendations and guidance, users can uncover their credit scores. CreditXpert Inc. can be found on the Web at http://www.creditxpert.com.

Bank of America is closing its private-label residential outsourcing unit, Financial Services Solutions, a joint venture operation that is partly owned by title insurance giant Fidelity National Financial.FSS president Greg Sullins told MortgageWire that, "our first task will be to shut down and take care of our one client." FSS employs about 400 and has offices in California, Kentucky, New York and North Carolina. Mr. Sullins said Bank of America has made a decision "to focus on its core business," noting that the decline in conventional residential production was a key factor in the move. (Loan volumes continue to be healthy in the non-conforming market but BoA exited that business several years ago.) FSS was launched in April 2003 during the height of the production boom. The biggest players in private-label outsourcing niche include PHH Mortgage, Countrywide and Nexstar Financial.

The Mortgage Bankers Association plans to release a commercial version of the data set standards used in the residential market to facilitate the transfer of information between the various players in the lending transaction.Speaking at the group's Commercial Real Estate Finance/Multifamily Housing Conference in San Diego, Chairman Michael Petrie said the MISMO-like platform would allow commercial lenders and their trading partners to swap information using consistent definitions. It will save money by reducing the need for repeated manual input, increasing reporting accuracy and bolstering investor conference, Mr. Petrie told the conference's opening session. He also told the meeting that the commercial sector must be more vigilant than ever. "We've never before been subject to so much regulation," he said. To make sure the industry's voice is heard, the MBA intends to boost its grassroots, Web-based Capital Assets program to 10,000 members and fatten its political action committee to the tune of $1.3 million. About 4,500 people are registered for the meeting, "the largest number (of commercial real estate executives) assembled in one place at one time," according to MBA President Jonathan Kempner.

GMAC Bank Wholesale Lending, Horsham, Pa., has introduced an enhanced version of Link to Lender, a joint effort with Fannie Mae that it says "significantly streamlines" the loan submission and registration process for brokers and correspondents who select GMAC Bank as the sponsoring lender when they use Fannie's Desktop Originator.Link to Lender is a new DO feature that enables one-click transfer of data, eliminating the need for importing, exporting, or re-keying data from DO into the wholesale lender's website, GMAC said. With the updated version of DO, GMAC will receive immediate electronic notification of an automated underwriting submission and automatically register or update the loan record on its system. "Link to Lender corrects what was a fragmented process for brokers and correspondents," said Matthew Detwiler, vice president of wholesale lending for GMAC Bank. "It strengthens an already powerful tool by letting DO be the single point of entry for a complete loan registration process."