Technology

The Mortgage Bankers Association has launched an online resource center it describes as a one-stop shop to help the industry combat mortgage fraud.The Mortgage Fraud Against Lenders Resource Center will be a central repository for information about fraud against mortgage lenders, the MBA said. The resource center will include such information as fraud-alert updates on emerging fraud schemes, a Lender Tool Box to help lenders protect themselves against fraud, and a resource library of reports and Web links. Jonathan L. Kempner, the MBA's president and chief executive officer, said the association wants the center to become "a virtual meeting place for lenders to share information and resources to protect their companies from being victimized by mortgage fraud against the real estate finance system." The center can be found online at http://mbafightsfraud.mortgagebankers.org.

"No massive layoffs" for the mortgage industry was the bottom line in MBA economist’s Douglas Duncan’s 2005 forecast delivered at the MBA technology conference in Orlando.Predicting $2.5 trillion total production for the year with interest rates topping off just north of 6%, Mr. Duncan quoted the Fed verdict of "robust underlying productivity growth" in support of his forecast. On the tech front, Hollister Group principal Rita Ballesteros, offered highlights of the second annual MBA Technology Study, showing modest gains in tech spending for 2004 over the previous year. The study showed LOS imaging and GLB as top priorities for lenders in spending technology dollars, with 92% of lenders saying they now use imaging at some stage of the process.

The Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization will have a compliance effort for credit reporting transactions completed by April with other MISMO Workgroups still handing in specs to define MISMO compliance across the board throughout the year.At press time the remaining workgroups within MISMO were working on specifications that would determine the minimum requirement for MISMO Compliance to be able to deliver a full compliance tool at a later date. Going further, SMART Doc and e-mortgage compliance services are expected by year’s end, according to the MBA.

In a move to broaden their reach to the small-to medium-size lender market Fiserv has acquired Del Mar Database, San Diego, the two companies said.Del Mar will continue to be run independently with no management changes, according to John Walsh, Del Mar Database president. Mr. Walsh said the acquisition will "add a lot of credibility to Del Mar." Leslie Muma, Fiserv president and chief executive officer, said the acquisition is a key milestone in the company's goal of "building the most complete technology solution for the lending industry." The actual price and terms of the deal were undisclosed. Del Mar can be found on the Web at http://www.delmard.com.

Dorado Corp. chose an exclusive opening-day dinner at the 2005 Mortgage Bankers Association technology conference in Orlando, Fla., to unveil its new Enterprise Lending System, which offers centralized viewing and control for any loan in all channels through a single point-of-sale.The ELS on-demand POS capabilities are scheduled to launch in the second quarter of this year. ELS can be used to integrate and augment all Dorado product components through a unified POS, using SOA to enable “rapid, cost-effective integration of people, information, systems and services across multiple technology platforms, business channels and partners,” the company said. ELS has well-defined, interoperable service interfaces to let one instance of a service be leveraged across the enterprise and be called upon at any time in the process by business users. Dorado officials told invited lenders at a Citrus Club dinner in downtown Orlando that the layered, service-oriented architecture of ELS will enable new vendor services to be quickly and easily added to a lender’s process flow so that lenders can adopt a best-of-breed vendor strategy. Dorado can be found on the Web at http://www.dorado.com.

WellFound Decade, Jacksonville, Fla., and PaperClip Software, Hackensack, N.J., have partnered to offer the mortgage industry what they're touting as the first simultaneous data and document delivery application, the companies told attendees at the Mortgage Bankers Association National Technology in Mortgage Banking Conference & Expo.Through this alliance, lenders can deliver both docs and data to their correspondents electronically with two clicks. Specifically, PaperClips’s imaging VirtualLoanFolder product will integrate with WellFound Decade’s InvestorExpress data delivery system to make the full transmission possible.

First American RES has chosen the 2005 MBA technology conference in Orlando to issue a challenge: Try to get its new LoanIQ tool to miss detecting a fraudulent loan.Boasting a 90% detection-success rate, First American invites lenders to submit the addresses for their early-pay defaults involving fraud, mixed in with some performing loans and some non-fraud loans that went to REO status in order to confirm that LoanIQ can pick out the instances of fraud. A lender submits the property address, the borrower's names, sellers' names, requested loan amount, estimated value, sale price or appraised value, and whether or not the property is classified as new construction or previously occupied. LoanIQ responds with a value in one of three categories: "Satisfactory," "Unsatisfactory" and "Marginal."

Denver-based Mortgage Cadence implemented its end-to-end LOS at Global Home Loans in just six months, and now it has topped that by going through the same cycle at RateStar Inc. in just 60 days, according to Mortgage Cadence.Homeowners Loan Corp. launched Mortgage Cadence in early 2004 as a plan to increase its internal efficiencies and extend them throughout its entire enterprise, including its wholly owned subsidiary, RateStar. HLC chief technology officer Paul Sadler said it took "a lot of hard work" to get RateStar up and running in 60 days. "Part of the success of this implementation is because we're very familiar with the Mortgage Cadence product," Mr. Sadler said. "We've been using it on the back end since 2004 and are now rolling it out to the front end." Nonetheless, Mr. Sadler said that even someone completely unfamiliar with Mortgage Cadence should be able to do a successful implementation within 90 days.

Jacksonville, Fla.-based WellFound Decade Corp., a provider of business integration software, has launched InvestorExpress, a product that permits mortgage sellers to electronically deliver mortgage loan data to their investors, including Countrywide.Countrywide's correspondent customers are the first to benefit from InvestorExpress, which enables the electronic delivery of loans to Countrywide with 98.5% accuracy, according to WellFound Decade. InvestorExpress automatically extracts committed loan data from the seller's system, translates the data into the investor's format of choice, and securely delivers it for upload into the investor's system. (For more on the benefits of this interface, see the March 28 issue of National Mortgage News.) WellFound Decade can be found on the Web at http://www.wellfounddecade.com.

Fidelity National Field Services Inc., a unit of Fidelity National Financial, Jacksonville, Fla., has introduced a state-specific, Web-based contractor assessment program for property preservation contractors.The Contractor Qualification Assessment program will "validate the industry proficiencies of more than 1,000 independent property preservation contractors managed by Fidelity National Field Services nationwide," according to the parent company. FNF said the program is based on lender and investor guidelines and "best practices" in the industry. It consists of questions relating to lender and investor requirements and state-specific requirements involving services such as conveyance preparation, lock changes, eviction attendances, and pool coverings, the company said. Fidelity National Field Services can be found online at http://www.fnfieldserv.com.