Technology

Todd Moncrief has joined Advectis Inc., an Atlanta-based electronic collaboration and workflow vendor, as vice president of business development.Mr. Moncrief has more than 14 years of experience in mortgage lending and technology systems. In his new position, Mr. Moncrief will be responsible for the development and management of Advectis' BlitzDocs networked provider and partner relationships, as well as creating product strategy for BlitzDocs Collaboration Suite and Advectis' electronic mortgage initiatives. Mr. Moncrief is coming to Advectis from Fiserv Lending Solutions, where he was the national sales executive for electronic lending. Prior to Fiserv, he was vice president of sales and business development at SwiftView, which was acquired by eLynx. Advectis can be found on the Web at http://www.advectis.com.

Unite Here, a New York-based labor union, has launched a website that it terms "an open resource on the subprime lending crisis and the nation's No. 1 subprime lender, Countrywide Financial Corp."Unite Here, which says it represents over 450,000 North American members, said it has also sent a survey to 1,500 borrowers who took out Countrywide adjustable-rate mortgages. The union said it will use the survey to research customers' experience, including knowledge of the terms of loans at the time they were made. The new website can be found at http://www.eyeoncountrywide.info, and the union can be found at http://www.unitehere.org.

First American Credco, a provider of specialty credit (and part of First Advantage Corp.), and First American CoreLogic have announced the introduction of ThirdParty Manager and Professional Screening Services as part of a line of mortgage lender origination and channel management tools.First American CoreLogic said its ThirdParty Manager streamlines the submission of broker data, as well as the due diligence, management, and monitoring of wholesale channel brokers via an online wizard. It also provides integrated due-diligence data and management tools for lenders to manage their overall broker relationships. First American Credco's Professional Screening Services, which includes broker and third-party screening and license monitoring, has been integrated with ThirdParty Manager. These services enable lenders to certify new originators, recertify third-party contractors, and perform a complete audit on their broker base as needed. "The integration of First Advantage's due diligence management capabilities and First American's solutions helps effectively manage risk and mortgage fraud, a growing issue affecting our lender customers, as well as the consumer," said Kathy Manzione, president of First American Credco. The companies can be found online at http://www.credco.com and http://www.facorelogic.com.

Keynoting the REConnect Conference in San Francisco, LendingTree founder Doug Lebda predicted that the survivors of the current mortgage liquidity crunch will grow bigger and stronger.While mortgage lenders may not want to become part of a conglomerate -- as his company did when he sold it to Barry Diller's IAC -- he said LendingTree itself has thrived under the IAC umbrella. Mr. Lebda reassured lenders that LendingTree will remain more of a marketplace facilitator than a competitor to mortgage lenders. He said its slice of the mortgage origination market will remain tiny as LendingTree concentrates on building business on the real estate side. LendingTree can be found online at http://www.lendingtree.com.

In a win for the Internet-based loan origination system model, Metavante Corp. has announced that Platinum Home Mortgage, Rolling Meadows, Ill., is upgrading to Metavante's online Mortgage Loan Origination Studio Software.Platinum president Bill Giambrone, a Metavante client since 2002, said the company chose moving to a Web-based mortgage LOS "to improve loan officer productivity and increase sales, while reducing the cost of maintaining client-server software on our employees' desktops." He said MLOS was one of the most feature-rich browser-based applications available. MLOS offers to help eliminate the high cost of distributing and maintaining desktop software on its originators' computers and reduce the risk associated with applications installed on laptops. Platinum can be found online at http://www.ephmc.com, and Metavante can be found at http://www.metavante.com.

Wolters Kluwer Financial Services, Minneapolis, has named Ken Newton executive vice president of banking content.Mr. Newton will be responsible for the company's overall growth in the banking, credit union, indirect lending, and mortgage markets. Prior to this promotion, Mr. Newton served as the vice president and chief operations officer for WKFS, where he led the operational aspects of the organization's manufacturing, customer support, product distribution, and enterprise systems. He also led the implementation of Lean Six Sigma across the company. WKFS can be found on the Web at http://www.wolterskluwerfs.com.

Integra Software Systems, a provider of mortgage origination software based in Brentwood, Tenn., has acquired the assets of Financial Compliance Corp. for an undisclosed amount."We are finding that more lenders, especially banks, want one software partner to handle their overall lending processing needs," said Integra president Jerry Pratt. Tim Bartek, senior vice president of sales-marketing for Integra, said the acquisition "is going to be a tremendous, immediate complement to our Destiny mortgage loan origination system, which is among the most robust in the industry. Now, we can also address lenders' other software needs -- beyond residential mortgages." Integra said it will immediately begin marketing FCC's WinBanker and WinDeposit as standalone products, and plans eventually to integrate key features into the Destiny software. The company also announced that Jim Williams, formerly president of FCC, has joined Integra, bringing over 30 years of experience in software development for banks and other lenders.

Zenta, a knowledge and business process outsourcing company based in New York, and Ellie Mae, Dublin, Calif., have entered into an affiliated partner agreement to offer Zenta's Broker Services through Ellie Mae's ePASS Network Web portal.Zenta Broker Services is a hybrid onshore/offshore service delivery platform that provides a low-cost alternative to in-house loan processing. Zenta said the platform has been designed to provide rapid turn times on loan processes and to comply with strict quality guidelines to improve processes by eliminating defects in the loan processing service. By combining Zenta's loan processing approach with Ellie Mae's Encompass Mortgage Management software, "users will get faster, higher-quality, and more-secure transfer of data and documents," the companies said. The companies can be found online at http://www.zenta.com and http://www.elliemae.com.

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.