Technology

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac officials are expressing concerns that the American Securitization Forum's efforts to draft consensus secondary market standards could potentially create another mortgage identification standard outside of the MERS Mortgage Identification Number and cause confusion in the industry. ASF has been seeking comment on delivery standards that are still under construction and may or may not include the MERS MIN. The ASF declined to comment on the issue. Each loan registered on MERS is given a unique MIN that identifies that loan. At present, the MIN and registering the e-note on MERS is mandated by both GSEs if they will accept an e-mortgage from any lender. Speaking at the Mortgage Bankers Association's Technology Conference in Las Vegas, Ted Adams of Freddie Mac stressed that, "The MIN works and we're using it. The introduction of another loan identification number as purposed by ASF would be confusing." To combat the potential of the MIN being rendered obsolete by anything the ASF creates, R.K. Arnold, president and CEO at MERS, urged lenders to adopt e-processes and use the MIN, arguing that if usage is mainstream, the ASF will have to recognize the validity of the current MIN.

With foreclosures on the rise, the share of Internet inquiries that include the keyword "foreclosure" has jumped in recent weeks, according to HitWise, an online measurement company. The week of Feb. 2 had the highest share, probably because of increased media coverage of the top foreclosure cities, said HitWise research director Heather Dougherty. But queries also jumped in the weeks ending Feb. 28 and March 7 to their second and third highest levels, respectively, in the last three years. Searches for "free foreclosure listings" and "foreclosure listings" topped the list of terms containing the word "foreclosure" for the four weeks ending March 7, which Ms. Dougherty said, "confirms" that many potential buyers are seeking bargains. The downstream sites visited following a keyword search uncovered a number of what HitWise labels as "uncategorized" sites that offer databases. Sites under that label are either too new or too small to be tracked, the Experian subsidiary says. But they nevertheless bear watching as they grow and compete for traffic.

BB&T Corp. has opted to embrace electronic signatures on disclosures and pre-closing documents.The company has chosen the Secure Lending solution from Fiserv for its e-lending purposes. Using the Fiserv solution will enable Winston-Salem, N.C.-based BB&T, the nation's 11th largest financial holding company, to manage workflow with compliance best practices by tracking and retaining all versions of the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act three-day disclosures and other pre-closing documents sent to borrowers. The Secure Lending solution electronically streamlines and manages the sharing of upfront loan disclosures with borrowers.

BB&T Corp. has opted to embrace electronic signatures on disclosures and pre-closing documents. The company has chosen the Secure Lending solution from Fiserv for its e-lending purposes. Using the Fiserv solution will enable Winston-Salem, N.C.-based BB&T, the nation's 11th largest financial holding company with $152 billion in assets, to more easily manage workflow with compliance best practices by tracking and retaining all versions of the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act three-day disclosures and other pre-closing documents sent to borrowers. The Secure Lending solution electronically streamlines and manages the sharing of upfront loan disclosures with borrowers. BB&T seamlessly sends the documents from their loan origination system to the customizable secure eLending website, where borrowers view, electronically sign, print or download them. BB&T will soon have the ability to receive the electronically signed documents, and any unsigned versions, directly back into their loan origination system, where they are then transferred into BB&T's internal document repository. The electronically signed originals can also be stored in the Fiserv platform electronic vault. Additionally, with the Secure Lending platform's new expanded reporting, BB&T is able to see full details and status of documents that have been electronically distributed through the platform, at a loan pipeline level.

SigniaDocs, Houston, has integrated its electronic vault technology with Equifax's identity verification engine to address their respective users' interest in using secure automation to counter increasing ID fraud through means in line with new federal rules. The engine, which is called Equifax Secure's eIDverifier, verifies online mortgage applications and the company promises borrower identification that is compliant with the Federal Trade Commission's Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act red flag rules. The rules, which first went into effect in November 2008 and are set for full enforcement as of May 1, require companies to look out for and address potential indicators that may be signs of ID fraud. A February report by Javelin Strategy & Research, San Francisco, indicated that the number of identity fraud victims increased 22% to 9.9 million adults in the United States in 2008.

Most Home Corp. Vancouver, British Columbia, has sold its point-of-sale automation tool, NetUpdate, to Mortgagebot, Mequon, Wis. Mortgagebot paid Most Home Corp. cash compensation of $600,000. In addition, Most Home is keeping approximately $107,000 in receivables that it had already billed or collected prior to closing. Before this deal came about, Most Home tried to sell NetUpdate to Data-Vision, but Most Home shareholders rejected the offer, which was structured as a three year arrangement that called for monthly payments, based on a percentage of gross revenues earned by the NetUpdate operations, with a minimum cumulative payment of $500,000 over that period. Most Home is focusing its efforts on mobile technology with this divestiture and Mortgagebot is gaining the NetUpdate customer base, which means Mortgagebot now serves 900 banks, thrifts, and credit unions nationwide.

Wolters Kluwer Financial Services has named Fran Sullivan to the newly created position of chief information officer within the company. Wolters Kluwer Financial Services provides regulatory intelligence, policy and process management, and oversight to help financial services organizations address their compliance needs. Mr. Sullivan will be responsible for the overall leadership of processes and practices supporting the flow of technology information across Wolters Kluwer Financial Services' different business lines. Wolters Kluwer Financial Services serves customers in the mortgage, banking, securities, insurance and indirect lending markets. Before he joined Wolters Kluwer Financial Services, Mr. Sullivan held several senior management positions related to product development, network services, systems integration and client integration at companies that included Fidelity Investments.

Direct-to-consumer FHA lender Lend America, Melville, N.Y., said it has built and implemented an automated "paperless" platform for loan originations and processing. Lend America launched the platform in early February 2009, and it said on Feb. 24 that all of the company's loan originations from application to closing are now conducted as paperless transactions. The technology, implemented under the direction of chief information officer Adeel Saeed, allows borrowers to e-sign disclosure documents via a secure portal and/or submit the documents required for their loan. The platform also allows borrowers to communicate in real time with Lend America's mortgage specialists. In addition, it is combined with an automated fulfillment process that can be tracked at every step through printed reports for those without online access if necessary.

MDA Lending Solutions, Wilmington, Del., has launched ARTAdvisor from MDA MindBox to help lenders better handle risk. The platform provides risk management from early risk detection through loss mitigation by automating the review, analysis and management of any size portfolio. Specifically, ARTAdvisor combines credit analysis with collateral analysis to identify risky loans and to propose optimal resolutions ranging from government-sponsored programs such as the FHA's Hope for Homeowners to lender-specific loan modifications. The platform uses a customizable rules engine to review any number of loans based on the organization's own standards for quality and performance. This risk management intelligence enables the organization to know how individual loans and entire portfolios are performing. ARTAdvisor identifies unseen or emerging points of risk, analyzes data from multiple sources to show trends in performance, identifies secondary market opportunities and accelerates loss mitigation strategies at the individual loan level and the portfolio level. It can also be implemented at the point-of-sale, pre-qualification or loan application stage to identify risk upfront.

Direct-to-consumer FHA lender Lend America, Melville, N.Y., has built and implemented an automated paperless platform for loan originations and processing. Lend America launched an automated paperless platform in early February 2009, and today all of the company's loan originations from application to closing are conducted as a paperless transaction. The technology allows borrowers to e-sign disclosure documents via a secure portal and/or submit the documents required for their loan. In addition, the platform allows borrowers to communicate in real-time with Lend America's mortgage specialists and is combined with an automated fulfillment process tracked at every step for those without online access.