Technology

PaperClip, Hackensack, N.J., has launched an integrated document management and loan processing system called VirtualLoanFolder.com, the company announced at the Mortgage Bankers Association Annual Convention in San Francisco.The product offers borrowers, originators, service providers and lenders a paperless processing solution that has conditions clearing, document management, workflow and secure document delivery functionality. In addition, the application is Web-based and linked directly to a user's loan origination software. PaperClip can be found on the Web at http://www.paperclip.com.

Oklahoma City-based a la mode has announced that it will offer electronic signature capability to all its real estate agent, broker, inspector, loan officer, and appraiser customers through the company's XSites Network.Specifically, a la mode signed an agreement to use Wave's eSign Transaction Management Suite, which allows users of XSites (formerly called the Mercury Network) to manage business processes and transactions online and create, sign, store, access, and manage the lifecycle of electronic records within a loan folder. The announcement was made at the Mortgage Bankers Association's Annual Convention in San Francisco. The company can be found on the Web at http://www.alamode.com.

Costs can be lowered as much as $249 per loan by adopting standards developed by the Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization, according to a study released by the Mortgage Bankers Association at its annual convention in San Francisco.The study, the first-ever MISMO time-and-motion study to quantify the return on investment of adopting MISMO standards, found that 75% of the lowered costs directly benefit the lender, the MBA reported. Execution costs can be improved by 15.38 basis points, a 25% to 50% pickup in lending margins, or $450 for the average loan. As for time savings, lender respondents reported that it was possible to process a loan 16% faster when using MISMO standards. Only 40% of lenders say they are using MISMO, but 40% to 50% say they plan to use the standards in the near future. The survey was sent to all MISMO participants and Campus MBA and MBA NewsLink recipients. It was also posted on the MBA and MISMO websites. In total, 45 lenders/servicers and 80 vendors/suppliers responded. The MBA can be found online at http://www.mortgagebankers.org.

Tom Litke, executive vice president of marketing and product management of Woodstock, Ga.-based WellFound Decade, has told Mortgage Wire that the membership of the eMortgage Alliance is expected to hit 30 by the spring of 2005.The prediction was spurred by the announcement at the Mortgage Bankers Association convention in San Francisco that Bankers Systems Inc. and U.S. Recordings had joined the organization. Initially the eMortgage Alliance was designed to be an assemblage of technology companies that could combine their solutions to form a complete electronic mortgage. Now, the organization has changed its focus to support all companies that are compliant with standards developed by the Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization in the hope that the adoption of MISMO standards will spur more interest in attaining an e-mortgage. The Alliance can be found online at its new website at http://www.emortgagealliance.us.

Fair Isaac and Fidelity picked the Mortgage Bankers Association convention in San Francisco to announce an enterprise-wide licensing agreement to deploy Fair Isaac's Blaze Advisor as the core of Fidelity's rules-layered architecture, spanning Fidelity's entire suite of product offerings.The result is expected to be that Fidelity will enjoy reduced costs in managing all its systems and will increase its speed to market with new products. The Fidelity announcement noted that business rules are playing an increasing role in streamlining complex enterprise systems. Fidelity said it chose Blaze Advisor because it offered comprehensive implementation support.

Fidelity National Default Solutions, Jacksonville, Fla., has announced a strategic partnership between its NewInvoice division and Santa Ana, Calif.-based RealEC Technologies, an e-commerce exchange for real estate transactions that is majority-owned by Fidelity's parent company.The partnership will provide a single point of access for automated ordering, tracking, reconciliation, electronic invoicing, and payment of products and services for the origination and default markets, Fidelity said. The company said mortgage originators will now have access to electronic invoice management, and mortgage servicers will have access to the RealEC-connected service providers. Fidelity's parent company, Fidelity National Financial Inc., can be found online at http://www.fnf.com, and RealEC can be found at http://www.realec.com.

ComplianceEase, San Francisco, is touting product enhancements that it says will provide the industry's most comprehensive regulatory compliance system.The company says ComplianceAnalyzer will bring together automated loan-level anti-predatory-lending audits, secondary-market investor criteria, and consumer credit compliance in one convenient service. An additional product, ComplianceAnalyzer Plus, offers financial institutions loan-level insurance coverage up to the conforming loan limit, ComplianceEase announced at the Mortgage Bankers Association convention in San Francisco. ComplianceAnalyzer replaces the company's current anti-predatory-lending compliance system, PredatorAnalyzer. The company can be found online at http://www.complianceease.com.

LoanPerformance, San Francisco, has announced the introduction of PreTell, a prepayment scoring platform developed with the aid of originators, servicers, traders, investors, and guarantors to form an industry standard.PreTell provides a numeric score on an index of zero to 1,000 designed to predict the likelihood that an individual loan will prepay within a six-month forecast window. Scoring is currently available for 30-year fixed-rate, jumbo 30-year fixed-rate, 30-year alternative-A, subprime 2/28 hybrid adjustable-rate, and subprime 3/27 hybrid adjustable-rate mortgages. The announcement was made at the Mortgage Bankers Association convention in San Francisco. LoanPerformance can be found online at http://www.loanperformance.com.

Fiserv Lending Solutions, Brookfield, Wis., has launched Electronic Partner Connection, which it says will act as a central point for the user to order bundled services.In its announcement at the Mortgage Bankers Association convention in San Francisco, Fiserv said it expects to deliver Electronic Partner Connection in the first quarter of 2005. EPC offers lenders the ability to order one service or multiple services, depending on need, and to review and monitor the services. Fiserv can be found on the Web at http://www.fiserv.com.

Wayne, Pa.-based GHR Systems has announced that both Washtenaw Mortgage and DeepGreen Financial have joined the company's multilender transaction portal, BrokerOneSource.BOS currently has over 5,000 brokers using the site as a point-of-sale tool and over 25 lenders, as well as various third-party service providers, according to GHR Systems. The addition of the two lenders will further diversify the services offered, as Washtenaw is a wholesale mortgage bank and DeepGreen is a business-to-business home equity lender. The announcement came at the Mortgage Bankers Association Annual Convention in San Francisco. GHR's BOS can be found on the Web at http://www.brokeronesource.