Technology

Minneapolis-based Dexma has forged a new relationship with information and services provider LexisNexis U.S. that Dexma says will help its customers and those of Prime Alliance Solutions fight fraud.Through a reseller agreement with LexisNexis, Dexma and Prime Alliance will offer anti-fraud products such as InstantID and InstantID Q&A. InstantID helps lenders verify the identity of mortgage applicants and others seeking credit approval. By conducting a proprietary search against over 1,400 independent data sources and nearly four billion consumer records, the tool verifies that each data element (name, address, Social Security #, birth date, phone #, driver's license #) is authentic and associated with the individual applicant, Dexma said. It also identifies high-risk addresses such as prisons or campgrounds, disconnected phone numbers, Social Security numbers of deceased persons, anyone on a government terrorist list, and discrepancies in data elements. If the applicant fails the InstantID or triggers other "red flags," lenders can use InstantID Q&A to authenticate identity by leveraging the database of publicly available data, the company said. Dexma can be found on the Web at http://www.dexma.com.

Visionet Systems, Cranbury, N.J., has launched VisiHCLAS, a high-cost predatory-lending analysis and remediation tool for lenders and servicers.VisiHCLAS helps mortgage companies manage and monitor situations where a high-risk loan warrants additional charges. The system allows users to evaluate fees and interest rates against the statutory limits set by high-cost loan regulations by focusing on three types of rules: channel/broker/area-specific rules, corporate guidelines and interpretation of statutory rules, and base/HOEPA/section 32 and state rules. VisiHCLAS works on an exception-management-based workflow system and allows the user to customize and select rules without IT's involvement. VisiHCLAS also enables users to specify loan numbers to be set up for review within VisiHCLAS, and the system in return pulls in the loan data and fee information from VisiHCLAS for the specified loans and sets up the loan analysis tasks in the system. The company can be found on the Web at http://www.visionetsystems.com.

San Jose, Calif.-based wholesaler LoanCity is poised to announce the release of AU 2.0, a proprietary automated underwriting system that delivers recommendations and stipulations in the same format and time frame as Fannie Mae's Desktop Underwriter.The benefit Loan City claims for brokers is that they can underwrite everything but hardcore subprime loans without exiting one AU system to run loans through another. The company calls AU 2.0 "the next generation of automated decisioning," because it lets mortgage brokers upload files in three clicks and receive firm decisions "almost instantly." The company offers group loan programs in seven broad product bands: conforming, jumbo, expanded, alternative-A, alternative-B, FHA/VA, and seconds. Within each band, there are wide ranges of credit, property, underwriting, and documentation options. The company can be found online at http://www.loancity.com.

Fannie Mae has loosened its mortgage approval standards for lower-income borrowers as it strives to meet its government-mandated affordable housing goals.Starting April 23, Fannie's automated underwriting system will approve more home purchase loans for borrowers with incomes of 100% (or less) of the area median income. This enhancement to Desktop Underwriter applies to most single-family loans, including Fannie's expanded approval loans. "It is important to note that DU will apply the same risk assessment as it does today (we are not changing the way DU analyzes risk for these loans); instead, we are changing (improving) the underwriting recommendation when the loan is identified by DU as meeting criteria for our regulatory housing goals to serve low- and moderate-income borrowers," Fannie says in a note to lenders. Fannie and Freddie Mac face incrementally higher affordable housing goals through 2008, and the Department Housing and Urban Development has made the goals more challenging by creating home purchase subgoals. Fannie has disclosed that it fell short in meeting two of the three subgoals in 2005.

Loan origination vendor Dynatek Inc., Livonia, Mich., has been certified for automated underwriting systems by the Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization.The AUS certification is only weeks old, and Dynatek is the first company to receive AUS certification under the MISMO MXCompliance Program. Specifically, Dynatek's MORvision was certified for AUS version 2.3.1. Since launching the MISMO eXtensible Markup Language Compliance program (dubbed MXCompliance) for the credit reporting transaction last spring, MISMO has rolled out requirements for mortgage insurance application transactions and now AUS transactions. Dynatek was one of the first to earn certification for credit in October 2005, followed by MI in January 2006. Dynatek can be found on the Web at http://www.dynatek.com.

Stewart Mortgage Information, Houston, has launched Collateral Profile, an alternative real valuation product available through e-Title, SMI's national vendor management company.The new valuation tool uses the expertise of local real estate professionals in conjunction with online data sources to render a valuation. "The product analyzes data from three comparable data sources and generates a desktop report providing basic information on the subject property, including neighborhood conditions, and also provides a value range for the subject property," said Kevin Gugenheim, SMI's president and chief operating officer. E-Title offers settlement services to lenders, including insured and uninsured title products, centralized closing and settlement solutions, and automated and traditional valuation products. SMI can be found online at http://smi.stewart.com.

ATM Corp., a Pittsburgh-based provider of settlement solutions, has joined forces with Equifax to launch a national settlement services company. The companies said that Equifax Settlement Services will provide a complete set of mortgage settlement offerings, including title, closing and appraisal services. "The introduction of Equifax Settlement Services enables us to provide a centralized resource to meet the growing settlement needs of our mortgage lending customers," said Dann Adams, group executive, Equifax North America Information Services. "This new venture is an important step in establishing Equifax's comprehensive suite of end-to-end mortgage solutions." ATM Corporation is the holding company for Vision Global Solutions, which helps lenders build settlement service subsidiaries.

The mortgage lenders that will stay in business are those spending on tech right now, said MBA chief economist Doug Duncan at a press briefing at the MBA tech conference now underway in San Diego.While the cost per loan spent on production technology rose year over year from an estimated $99 for 2004 to $119 for 2005, he said the smart companies are choosing to reinvest in technology between the end of the refinancing boom and the time when declining loan volumes put the brakes on new technology projects. The MBA MISMO e-mortgage group announced several new releases, including an e-mortgage closing guide, and an e-closing cost benefit analysis white paper showing how to calculate the ROI for e-closings. Responding to growing concerns over security, MISMO also issued a white paper on data security.

GMAC Residential Funding, Minneapolis, has launched an enhanced version of its Assetwise Compliance Engine.The latest version has been integrated with ComplianceAnalyzer, a compliance tool developed by ComplianceEase, a Bay Area-based company. GMAC Residential Funding lending partners that use ComplianceEase will be able to access the Assetwise Compliance engine as part of their ComplianceEase subscription. ComplianceEase users will now be given an option to receive a free Assetwise Compliance Engine findings report. The complimentary report will indicate if the loan may be eligible for purchase by GMAC Residential Funding. "Our partnership with GMAC Residential Funding has empowered mortgage lenders with an effective tool with which to determine loan compliance," said Dave Girling, executive vice president of ComplianceEase. "Our integrated compliance solution was developed to specifically address the needs of mortgage lenders by making the loan origination process more efficient, and by helping to increase profitability in an increasingly competitive market." For more information about ComplianceEase, visit http://www.ComplianceEase.com, while the website for the parent of GMAC Residential Funding, Residential Capital Corp. is located at https://www.rescapholdings.com.

Synergistic Technologies, MRG Document Technologies and World Wide Notary formed an alliance by which the three companies will jointly offer mortgage lenders an end-to-end e-mortgage solution.At the MBA tech show the companies said that they will combine their respective solutions and expertise in document preparation and delivery, document imaging and management and electronic signatures to streamline paper-based loan processes for mortgage lenders while providing them with a flexible, iterative e-mortgage migration strategy that includes automated loan processing workflow, online document sharing, secure, hosted document management, and electronic signing.