Technology

MERS, the electronic registry for tracking ownership of mortgage loans and servicing rights, has registered its 50 millionth loan.The milestone comes nine years after MERS pioneered its "MERS as original mortgagee" process, enhancing the registry by eliminating the need for an initial assignment to MERS. R.K. Arnold, president and chief executive officer of MERS, said the MOM process has allowed lenders and servicers to streamline their operations and reduce costs. "Having 50 million loans registered since then is gratifying, especially when we realize that reducing lender costs to originate loans benefits borrowers, especially first-time homeowners," he said. MERS eliminates the need to prepare and record paper assignments when mortgage companies sell loans or servicing rights. MERS estimates that lenders save at least $25 for each loan that is registered on the system. Currently, some 3,000 participating lenders register an average of 25,000 loans on MERS each day, the company said. MERS can be found on the Web at http://www.mersinc.org.

First National Bank of Arizona has turned to Phoenix-based Accenture for post-closing business process outsourcing.The Accenture service combines personnel, process, and technology to fully automate this part of mortgage fulfillment. Financial terms of the two-year contract were not disclosed. Accenture said it will provide the bank with file-room services, including imaging to convert paper documents into electronic form, indexing to capture relevant information in digital form, workflow services to speed processing, and performance metrics spanning the process. It will also offer data and document review to confirm that loans have met underwriting, servicing, and secondary-market salability requirements. Accenture will deliver the service both onsite and through its Global Delivery Network, which includes more than 40 centers in 30 cities around the world. The company can be found on the Web at http://www.accenture.com.

ATM Corporation of America, a settlement provider based in Coraopolis, Pa., has announced that its Streamlined Settlement Package has established an industry benchmark by enabling the mortgage loan settlement process to occur within six days from application, "four days faster than its nearest competitor."Boasting complete automation of every step in the collateral valuation, title, and settlement process, SSP gives lenders greater control and improved quality via a centralized Web-based document management system that also facilitates the e-mortgage process, the company said. It also allows lenders to guarantee all settlement costs, including recording fees and mortgage tax, to the borrower at the point of sale. SSP includes VisionCTI, which enables the loan officer and borrower to pre-schedule the appraisal and closing date, time, and location at the point of sale to improve the borrower experience. ATM, located in a suburb of Pittsburgh, can be found online at http://www.atmprof.com.

Lydian Technology Group, a mortgage technology provider based in Jacksonville, Fla., has enhanced its Mortgage Connectivity Hub to enable investors to accept loans from sellers electronically regardless of how the sellers submit the loan data.The system, which targets mid- to large-size lenders, now makes it far easier for investors to embrace electronic loan delivery, the company said. Lydian president Brian Fitzpatrick said there are probably fewer than 10 big aggregators that can accept loans electronically. "Regardless of how much we want to talk about electronic loan delivery, very few investors can support electronic loan submissions these days from a data perspective," he said. Mortgage Connectivity Hub now enables investors to accept loans electronically without having to make a significant financial investment and to process bulk transactions more like flow transactions, Lydian said. "Now investors can take a bulk transaction and have it broken down into single transactions that can be processed one at a time and automatically sent on to downstream systems or processes -- all quickly, accurately, and minimizing the opportunity of error," Mr. Fitzpatrick said. The company can be found online at http://www.lydiantechnology.com.

Compass Analytics LLC and Standard & Poor's Ratings Services have announced the integration of S&P's Levels credit model and Spire cash flow model into Compass's Mortgage Analytics system, CompassPoint.Customers of the two companies will now have loan-level access to Levels and Spire through CompassPoint for loan valuation, rate sheet generation, best execution, and duration modeling. "Compass's loan-level integration of Levels and Spire is a substantial enhancement to Compass's mortgage valuation and trading analytics, designed to seamlessly integrate the valuation process from mapping of loan data through structured cash flow valuations," said Rob Kessel, managing partner of Compass Analytics. The companies can be found online at http://www.compass-analytics.com and http://www.standardandpoors.com.

Overture Technologies, Bethesda, Md., and Tavant Technologies, Santa Clara, Calif., have announced the launch of a customizable end-to-end lending system for conduits and correspondent lenders.The system will allow conduits "to foster deeper relationships with correspondent partners and dramatically improve the efficiency of loan transactions and securitization operations," the companies said. Overture's Mozart Product Suite enables conduits and correspondents to address their needs in the areas of loan acquisition, best loan execution, securitization, and portfolio management, they said. In related news, Overture also announced a partnership with MortgageHub to provide midsize lenders an "easy and affordable way" to enhance productivity with Mozart's preconfigured, automated pricing, product selection, and underwriting tools. "Now mid-sized lenders can get the power of a big company solution, without the big company price," said Bill Kelvie, Overture's chief executive officer. Overture can be found online at http://www.overturetechnologies.com, and Tavant can be found at http://www.tavant.com.

Ellie Mae, a Dublin, Calif.-based provider of software and services for the mortgage industry, has released Dynamic Loan Screening, which it touts as the industry's first virtual inter-operable platform that matches loan applications with the products and services of lenders, investors, and settlement service providers.The platform automatically identifies matches between borrower data and products, services, and promotions of participating lenders, investors, and service providers as an originator enters data into Encompass, Ellie Mae's mortgage management system. "As the originator inputs loan data into Encompass, that data is continuously monitored, and when a 'match' occurs, an offer is automatically displayed on the originator's loan origination system screen," said Jonathan Corr, Ellie Mae’s chief strategy officer. "For lenders and service providers, it's like having an account executive sitting on the originator's desktop." Dynamic Loan Screening can also screen for compliance and fraud as well as prepayment and early delinquency risks. Ellie Mae can be found online at http://www.elliemae.com.

Addressing pain points currently haunting the mortgage industry, Fort Worth, Texas-based Rapid Reporting has announced major initiatives addressing fraud prevention and buybacks.Rapid Reporting has partnered with collateral valuation and fraud specialist Magellan Lender Services, San Francisco, to give mortgage lenders a complete solution that checks the validity of both borrower and collateral-related data used to evaluate and approve mortgage loan applications. Rapid Reporting will provide borrower-related verifications and Magellan will provide collateral-based verifications to deliver one-stop coverage. Rapid Reporting said it is also offering a Stated Doc Report providing additional IRS-verified information to determine whether information on stated-income loan applications is corroborated by Internal Revenue Service data. No actual numerical data are released in Rapid Reporting's Stated Doc Report, so the integrity of stated-income loans can be maintained.

In an attempt to expand further into the mid-tier, MortgageHub Inc., Conshohocken, Pa., has acquired loan origination vendor Dynatek, Livonia, Mich.The terms of the transaction were not disclosed. The acquisition comes on the heels of MortgageHub's acquisition of the London Bridge properties owned by Fair Isaac. With the Dynatek acquisition, MortgageHub says it now has 550 lender clients. The entire management staff at Dynatek will remain untouched, and the company will maintain its name, branding, and headquarters. MortgageHub said it will add additional sales people to Dynatek's staff and invest considerable research and development funds to speed up the rollout of Titanium, an update of Dynatek's core system that the company has been phasing in over the past year. Chetan Patel, executive vice president of mergers and acquisitions at ISGN Technologies, a major investor in MortgageHub, told Mortgage Wire that MortgageHub plans future acquisitions this year, with the goal of becoming a top-three technology company in the mortgage space within two years. MortgageHub can be found online at http://www.mortgagehub.com.

Interthinx, Agoura Hills, Calif., has released the results of its latest data analysis, which it says can accurately predict which loans will be nonperforming over time.The Interthinx score predicts the likelihood of foreclosure and early payment default. In this study, Interthinx configured and evaluated performance data on over two million loan application records from its database. Through an alliance with one of the top three U.S. credit bureaus, Interthinx analyzed late payments, defaults, and foreclosure data from mortgage trade lines and compared the data with previous scores and red flags for possible mortgage fraud within loan applications. Using the Interthinx scoring system, the analysis quantitatively demonstrated that loans with a low score have a much higher level of risk than loans with a high score, the company said. For example, the risk of foreclosure in the first year is 20 times higher for loans with a score in the 0-200 range than for loans with a score in the 800-1000 range. The statistical analysis was led by Derek Stanford, director of analytics for Interthinx. The company can be found on the Web at http://www.interthinx.com.