Technology

ABN Amro Mortgage Group, Ann Arbor, Mich., has announced that Ford Motor Co. now offers a private-label version of AAMG's Mortgage.com to its employees.Under the arrangement with AAMG's National Lending Center Affinity and Relocation Lending division, Ford employees can access various mortgage lending products and services at a discount through Ford's Intranet, including AAMG's guaranteed OneFeemortgage. OneFee guarantees, at the time the loan's interest rate is locked, all the typical lender-related fees associated with obtaining a mortgage loan, AAMG said.

Fidelity National Financial Inc., Jacksonville, Fla., has announced the addition of new reporting capabilities and a search feature to its BuyBankHomes.com Web portal on foreclosed properties.The new reporting capabilities enable financial institutions to obtain information on their listed properties, including the number of times a property has been displayed or e-mailed to an interested party. The search feature allows brokers to locate properties that have not been distributed to other brokers or agents, FNF said. The portal can be found at http://www.buybankhomes.com.

CreditXpert Inc., a credit analysis and management provider based in Towson, Md., launched a tool for finding inaccuracies in credit files and giving the user the ability to act on them.Specifically, CreditXpert Detective scans an individual's credit data to reveal potential inaccuracies and recommends specific updates that will most significantly improve the person's credit score. It also automatically generates customized instructions and dispute letters. Using the tool's recommendations and guidance, users can uncover their credit scores. CreditXpert Inc. can be found on the Web at http://www.creditxpert.com.

Bank of America is closing its private-label residential outsourcing unit, Financial Services Solutions, a joint venture operation that is partly owned by title insurance giant Fidelity National Financial.FSS president Greg Sullins told MortgageWire that, "our first task will be to shut down and take care of our one client." FSS employs about 400 and has offices in California, Kentucky, New York and North Carolina. Mr. Sullins said Bank of America has made a decision "to focus on its core business," noting that the decline in conventional residential production was a key factor in the move. (Loan volumes continue to be healthy in the non-conforming market but BoA exited that business several years ago.) FSS was launched in April 2003 during the height of the production boom. The biggest players in private-label outsourcing niche include PHH Mortgage, Countrywide and Nexstar Financial.

The Mortgage Bankers Association plans to release a commercial version of the data set standards used in the residential market to facilitate the transfer of information between the various players in the lending transaction.Speaking at the group's Commercial Real Estate Finance/Multifamily Housing Conference in San Diego, Chairman Michael Petrie said the MISMO-like platform would allow commercial lenders and their trading partners to swap information using consistent definitions. It will save money by reducing the need for repeated manual input, increasing reporting accuracy and bolstering investor conference, Mr. Petrie told the conference's opening session. He also told the meeting that the commercial sector must be more vigilant than ever. "We've never before been subject to so much regulation," he said. To make sure the industry's voice is heard, the MBA intends to boost its grassroots, Web-based Capital Assets program to 10,000 members and fatten its political action committee to the tune of $1.3 million. About 4,500 people are registered for the meeting, "the largest number (of commercial real estate executives) assembled in one place at one time," according to MBA President Jonathan Kempner.

GMAC Bank Wholesale Lending, Horsham, Pa., has introduced an enhanced version of Link to Lender, a joint effort with Fannie Mae that it says "significantly streamlines" the loan submission and registration process for brokers and correspondents who select GMAC Bank as the sponsoring lender when they use Fannie's Desktop Originator.Link to Lender is a new DO feature that enables one-click transfer of data, eliminating the need for importing, exporting, or re-keying data from DO into the wholesale lender's website, GMAC said. With the updated version of DO, GMAC will receive immediate electronic notification of an automated underwriting submission and automatically register or update the loan record on its system. "Link to Lender corrects what was a fragmented process for brokers and correspondents," said Matthew Detwiler, vice president of wholesale lending for GMAC Bank. "It strengthens an already powerful tool by letting DO be the single point of entry for a complete loan registration process."

Los Angeles-based CarsDirect has acquired several mortgage website properties from Myers Internet Inc.The terms of the transaction were not disclosed. As part of the agreement, CarsDirect acquires Myers' mortgage lead technology platform and its consumer brands BestRate.com and LoanApp.com. The acquisition was designed to accelerate the growth of CarsDirect's mortgage business and complement its current consumer-facing mortgage websites -- LoanStore.com and CheckInterestRates.com, the company said. Myers can be found on the Web at http://www.myers.com.

AllRegs, an Eagan, Minn.-based online publisher of reference information for the mortgage industry, has announced the introduction of the Practical Guide to FHA Lending.Written by Alice Alvey, John Gehrke, & Jan Wetzel of Mortgage U, the online Practical Guide is a comprehensive "how-to" source book that is updated continually and organized to mirror the mortgage process, the company said. It features exclusive worksheets, tables, checklists, and "best practices" for guidance on common procedures and accepted standards, according to AllRegs. AllRegs is the official electronic publisher of the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Single and Multifamily Seller/Servicer Guides and the Federal Home Loan Banks' MPF Program Guidelines.

"It's the data, dummy," said Countrywide executive vice president Omer Simeon in introducing a live demonstration of the company's Web-based DIDO (data in, document out) system during Monday's keynote address at the Thomson Media Mortgage Technology Conference in Miami.The message was that paper capture processes will be a reality for some time, though electronic mortgages are the goal. In the meantime, the electronic processes will continue to mimic paper processes as lenders accustom themselves to the change, Mr. Simeon said. While supporting the process established by the Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization, he said Countrywide will continue to develop its own proprietary use of Extensible Markup Language for internal uses and convert to MISMO standards to communicate with the outside world.

Fiserv, Brookfield, Wis., has reported net income of $377.6 million ($1.91 per share) for 2004, up from $315.0 million ($1.61 per share) in 2003.Fiserv's processing and services revenues came in at $3.35 billion for the year, a 29% increase from $2.59 billion in 2003. For the fourth quarter, Fiserv reported net income of $97.5 million ($0.49 per share), up from $82.0 million ($0.42 per share) a year earlier. Fiserv can be found on the Web at http://www.fiserv.com.