Technology

Countrywide Financial Corp. has chosen San Diego-based Akonix Systems Inc. to provide automated reporting and industry and corporate compliance for the instant messaging system it uses for real-time communications between its employees.The selection was prompted by various government and lending institution mandates. Akonix L7 Enterprise IM management gateway offers detailed, flexible usage polices, provides active filtering for inappropriate content and confidential information, and offers advanced logging, reporting, and compliance monitoring capabilities. Akonix touts L7 Enterprise as the first real-time security system for public and enterprise IM systems. The company offers a security center to provide real-time information about worms, viruses, and other vulnerabilities that target IM and P2P networks. Countrywide, based in Calabasas, Calif., uses the IBM Lotus Sametime IM system. The companies can be found online at http://www.akonix.com and http://www.countrywide.com.

LoanPerformance, a subsidiary of First American Real Estate Solutions, has announced the release of a new high-speed version of TrueStandings Securities Web-based service, which offers access to its mortgage- and asset-backed securities databases.The company said "dramatic improvements" have been made to the system's processing times and performance by implementing the Sybase IQ analytics server, which it said is designed to deliver "ultra-high-speed" business intelligence and reporting. The new version of TrueStandings Securities runs analyses and reports up to 100 times faster than previous versions, the company said. "This isn't just a case of a few show-stopping improvements," said Dan Feshbach, chief executive officer of LoanPerformance. "This is an across-the-board upgrade that provides a whole new, entirely different experience for users -- especially power users." The company can be found online at http://www.loanperformance.com.

Visionet Systems, Cranbury, N.J., has announced the opening of a new business process outsourcing center in Bangalore, India.The new BPO center focuses on loan review, underwriting verifications, lien release, default management, and investor accounting to mortgage lending and servicing organizations. "With seven of the top 10 banks using our solutions to drive outsourcing, Visionet Systems is focused on delivering mortgage-specific technology products that bring visibility to the outsourcing process," said Arshad Masood, president of Visionet Systems. Visionet also owns and operates BPO centers in Lahore and Karachi, Pakistan.

RealEC Technologies, a Santa Ana, Calif.-based provider of supply chain technology to the mortgage industry, has announced the release of a new software system designed to manage mortgage insurance ordering.The software includes a set of Provider Qualification Tools that enable lenders to designate which mortgage insurance company provides the optimal coverage (for the specific loan program or loan criteria) and ensures them that they will have access to mortgage insurance products even if one MI company is unavailable. RealEC said the automated tools can automatically re-route orders to ensure maximum availability. In addition, the company's Opportunity Cost Allocation Models allow the lender to further designate the allocation of MI orders based on the opportunity to receive an order instead of the acceptance of an order. "RealEC's newest set of decision tools provides a higher degree of automation, efficiency, and accuracy in the mortgage insurance process than is possible with other solutions," said Jason Nadeau, president of RealEC Technologies. The company can be found online at http://www.realec.com.

Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, Des Moines, Iowa, has announced the sale of an electronic mortgage to Freddie Mac that represents the first time a third-party custodian has been involved in an e-mortgage transaction on the MERS eRegistry.Wells Fargo said it was the first of several e-mortgages that it will process over the next several months with the aid of Greenlight Financial Services, Irvine, Calif., and a group of technology companies. The process began Dec. 14 with Greenlight's electronic origination of a single-family mortgage using Freddie's Loan Prospector.com, Wells Fargo said. Veri-docs.com, the settlement agent, used Fiserv Lending Solutions' e-lending platform to close the mortgage using the Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization's SMART Doc category 1 electronic note (developed by VMP Mortgage Solutions). Fiserv Lending Solutions, the electronic vault vendor, provided the connection to the MERS eRegistry, and Wells Fargo Document Custody is the custodian of record, Wells Fargo reported.

When hurricanes and downturns in real estate prices raise risk-management issues for banks, the feedback will come much quicker now with the universal adoption of a new Bank Call Reporting System hailed by federal regulators.Members of the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council attending a Jan. 18 meeting in San Jose, Calif., gave high marks to the new system, now in use by 100% of the 7,200 regulated financial institutions that make quarterly reports to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the Federal Reserve Board, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. Thanks to eXtensible Business Reporting Language, the FDIC is expecting to enjoy an estimated 70% savings in time spent handling information in quarterly reports from regulated lenders, according to Martin Henning, associate director of the FDIC's statistics branch. Before XBRL, Mr. Henning told MortgageWire, there was often a three-week lag in the time it took reported data to be made available to regulatory analysts. Now there is instant data validation. With XBRL tagging, data used for multiple purposes and analysis in different software formats no longer has to be rekeyed.

American Money Network LLC, a San Francisco-based Internet mortgage lead aggregator that manages LoanHounds.com, has announced that it is seeking a strategic partner to expand its business.The four-year-old company said it is seeking a partner with national licensing or Web traffic because, as a small private company, it is limited in its ability "to secure sizable Web media contracts with the major portals." AMN said it manages multiple online mortgage domains, including LoanHounds.com, and has a network of more than 60 national and regional networks. "We have the confidence of lenders and consumers," said the company's David Rosen. "Now we just need to find a partner who'll help us become a Tier 1 player." LoanHounds can be found online at http://www.loanhounds.com.

Mortgage Cadence, a Denver-based mortgage technology company, has launched Mortgage Cadence Symphony, a new ASP (application software provider) model for small and midsize lenders.The application consists of a preconfigured end-to-end platform for origination, underwriting, and processing that is supported by "a powerful workflow engine," a product and pricing decisioning engine, validations, full-document imaging, and reporting, the company said. Mike Detwiler, chief executive officer of Mortgage Cadence, said the company concluded from discussions with small and midsize lenders that they could benefit from technology similar to that used by larger lenders. "So we came up with a simplified offering that gave them advanced lending functionality without the high cost," he said, adding that the system's transactional basis enables them to better match revenue and expenses. The company can be found online at http://www.mortgagecadence.com.

Oklahoma City-based a la mode has announced the formation of the Appraisal Advocacy Coalition, a nonprofit group dedicated to protecting and supporting residential appraisers.The announcement came at a la mode's Winter Convention in Las Vegas, and the company's founder and chairman, Dave Biggers, is donating "significant money and manpower to jump-start the new effort," the company said. However, the Washington, D.C.-based coalition will be separate from a la mode, a developer of software and online services for the real estate and mortgage industries. Ben Harris, a la mode's director of public affairs, said the coalition has been formed "to ensure that the single most important facet of the American economy doesn't fall prey to predatory lenders and shady 'appraisal alternatives'." The coalition can be found online at http://www.appraisaladvocacy.org, and a la mode can be found at http://www.alamode.com.

Mortgage Guaranty Insurance Corp., Milwaukee, has announced the acquisition of Myers Internet Inc., a San Jose, Calif.-based provider of Web-based point-of-sale systems for mortgage originators and real estate agents.The terms of the deal were not disclosed. MGIC said the Myers platform augments MGIC's eMagic portal, which offers originators, lenders, and vendors access to automated underwriting decisions, mortgage insurance, contract services, rate locks, and other services. "Myers is the top provider of websites for mortgage brokers in the mortgage industry and has made strong inroads with real estate agents," said Curt S. Culver, chairman, president, and chief executive officer of MGIC and its parent company, MGIC Investment Corp. "By acquiring Myers, MGIC can bring further efficiencies to mortgage lending." Myers will be a wholly owned subsidiary of MGIC, and will be called Myers Internet -- a MGIC company. The companies can be found on the Web at http://www.mgic.com and http://www.myers.com.