Technology

Best known for its Funding Suite credit and AVM product, Cogent Road is expanding its offerings to enable lenders to go fully paperless with Business Spaces, an e-collaboration document management system designed to first help lenders eliminate paper and gradually move to full electronic processes. Business Spaces automates work processes by delivering documents, tracking their status and notifying key workgroups of issues that may delay closing. The moment a loan officer orders a credit report, a Business Space is created and the applicant is notified via e-mail. The loan applicant enters a private, secured environment through which he or she can view, e-sign or upload documents directly into the Business Space via computer, fax or an easy-to-use virtual printer. Further, the borrower can also communicate using micro-blogs and discussion threads integrated in different areas within the Business Space. With automatic audit logging, all borrower actions are effectively tracked for compliance purposes. As the loan progresses, the Business Space evolves into a collaborative workspace enabling communication between the loan officer and title agents, notary agents, appraisers and real estate agents.

Subservicer Ofori Lender Services, Southfield, Mich., plans to service all of its loans through a new system in January in a move it said is slated to save it $2,500 in telecommunication costs. Ofori said it plans to service its loans through the Southfield, Mich.-based McDonald Computer Corp.'s Web-based system during the upcoming month. "By greatly reducing our cost on technology and management portfolios, we will become a more competitive subservicer," said Karen Heller, Ofori Lending Services' servicing manager.

Wipro Technologies, the global IT services business of Wipro Ltd., and Citigroup Inc. said that they have reached an agreement for Wipro to acquire Citi Technology Services Ltd., the India-based provider of information technology services and solutions to Citi entities worldwide, for an all cash consideration of $127 million. As part of the transaction, Wipro and Citi will sign a master services agreement for the delivery of technology infrastructure services and application development and maintenance services for a period of six years. The agreement provides for the delivery of at least $500 million in service revenue over the period of the contract. The transaction is expected to be closed by March 2009, subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals.

Real estate website Zillow.com has launched Zillow Advice, an online resource for consumers to find answers to specific local real estate questions. Located in the "Advice" tab on Zillow.com, Zillow Advice encourages consumers to "Ask a Question," tag it by topic or locality, and receive advice from Zillow's online community of local real estate experts. Zillow Advice adds to existing community features such as Zillow Discussions and Home Q&A, which allow for broader discussion topics or home-specific questions and answers. Currently, more than 40,000 contributions are made to Zillow.com by its community of users each day, according to Zillow.

Fraud prevention firm National Loan Auditors, Walnut Creek, Calif., is now offering an online resource portal aimed at providing clients with up-to-date information on statutes and case law pertaining to lending and foreclosure. The portal includes status updates on all federal, state and municipal legislation, the company said. "NLA Law Portal adds value to our forensic loan audit by providing support for its findings and information on how to effectively use the audit report in legal proceedings," said August Blass, CEO of National Loan Auditors. "Users are given summaries and guidelines that distill lending and foreclosure law into a short manageable synopsis, saving hours in research." Once access has been granted, clients have the ability to search various summary topics such as alternatives to workout agreements, Truth in Lending Act summary, and Home Ownership and Equity Protection Act action steps. State legislation topics also are available. By selecting a state, users will receive current case law and statues in that state. Litigation tools also will be displayed when applicable.

Harland Financial Solutions' Interlinq E3, the company's Web-based loan production platform management system, is providing complete integration with Compliance EAGLE, an automated compliance review service developed by QuestSoft. Compliance EAGLE offers Interlinq E3 users a compliance process within the LOS. Compliance EAGLE uses proprietary rule sets to identify regulatory exceptions. "Harland Financial Solutions has been a valued integration partner of QuestSoft's for more than ten years," said Leonard Ryan, president of QuestSoft in a prepared statement. This integration is said to provide customers with a best practices approach to dealing with regulatory compliance.

Bethesda, Md.-based decisioning and analytics vendor Overture has closed $6 million in Series C funding led by Capital Trust Ventures with continuing participation from CNF Investments, New Markets Growth Fund and other existing investors. Financing will be used to support market expansion to meet urgent and increasing demand for the company's financial decisioning solutions serving the mortgage and education lending industries. In conjunction with the funding, Tim Meyers, managing partner at Capital Trust Ventures, has joined Overture's board of directors.

Dallas-based Vantium Capital Inc. has begun offering electronic modifications through its Acqura Loan Services in an effort to improve and accelerate borrower acceptance. The company is using SigniaDoc's SMART Doc technology to prepare and present the e-mods to borrowers with loans that it services for investors and for its own fund. The borrowers are invited to view their loan modification documents online at a secure portion of Acqura's website and review them on a real-time basis with a representative from Acqura's Home Owner Solutions Center. If they agree with the modification, the borrowers can immediately e-sign the documents online in a secure environment. A growing number of investors will now accept e-signed mods, and federal and state courts have also recognized the validity of e-signed documents for loan modifications, the company said. Once the e-mod has been executed, it is electronically delivered to the investor's custodian and then filed in an e-vault.

Brookfield, Wis.-based Fiserv Inc. has enhanced capabilities to its Home Retention Solutions offering that enable financial institutions to identify and contact troubled borrowers with customized repayment solutions to try to keep them out of foreclosure. In addition, Fiserv is supporting programs such as Fannie Mae's Home Saver Advance Program, which provides an advance to cover past-due mortgage payments in exchange for a separate, unsecured loan, and the newly introduced Streamlined Modification Program, in which borrowers receive reduced interest rates or longer loan terms to make their payments more affordable. Among the enhancements developed since the initial launch of Home Retention Solutions in June 2008 are "one-touch" customer contact and advanced loss mitigation workflow tools that more fully automate the loan modification process, including secure electronic delivery of modification documents to borrowers with an electronic signature option when available. One-touch contact and the electronic fulfillment of the documents dramatically accelerate the completion of the modification process, even enabling the process to be completed in one phone call with the borrower.

Fiserv, Inc. has entered into an agreement to acquire i_Tech Corp., a provider of outsourced account and payment processing services, from First Interstate BancSystem Inc., a multi-state, $6 billion banking organization headquartered in Billings, Montana. The purchase price is $40 million, with an expected closing date of December 31, 2008. i_Tech provides outsourced account processing services as a licensee and reseller of the Fiserv ITI Premier core banking system to financial institutions located primarily in the northern Midwest and West. In addition to account processing services, i_Tech provides its clients with a variety of complementary services including EFT processing and check processing.