Technology

BCE Emergis plans to downsize its Greensboro, N.C., office by this October, but denies reports it will exit the U.S. by the end of the year, MortgageWire has learned."We've announced to our employees in the Greensboro office that we are in the process of evaluating our invoicing product to leverage it as part of a broader payment solution," said Mark Boutet, vice president of communications at BCE. "As such, we're in the process of centralizing some development functions out of Montreal [BCE's corporate headquarters], where we have a core team of developers. We expect to accomplish this goal over a transition period bringing us up to October of '04." The number of people to be laid off was not disclosed as of MW's deadline. BCE said it plans to retain a Greensboro presence beyond October, but on a smaller scale. However, a credible industry source said BCE is expected to exit the U.S. market, perhaps as early as the close of this year. Nonetheless, BCE operates two other offices in the U.S., a sales office in Denver and an office in McLean, Va., where the company runs its e-lending product, which will both remain at full capacity in preparation for the commercial rollout of the company's e-lending product this May. "We are absolutely committed to the e-lending market in the U.S. and have approximately 70 employees in the McLean office," said Mr. Boutet. BCE's products enable lenders to make electronic transactions involving claims, loans, and payment processing. The company can be found on the Web at http://www.emergis.com.

BridgeSpan Inc., Frisco, Texas, has announced that the San Jose Division of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of California has approved bidding procedures for the company's sale of assets.In an Order Establishing Bidding Procedures, Authorizing Termination Fee and Setting Dates, Deadlines for Hearing on Chapter 11 Plan Disclosure Statement, the court set April 14 as the deadline for submitting alternative proposals for the stock of BridgeSpan or its assets. Prospective bidders may receive a copy of the order and additional information by contacting Penn Ayers Butler of Brooks & Raub, the company's reorganization counsel, at PButler@reorglaw.com. BridgeSpan and BridgeSpan Title filed Chapter 11 petitions in January.

Ellie Mae Inc., Dublin, Calif., has appointed Gunnar Bergstrom, former president of Electronic Mortgage Services at BCE Emergis Inc., as vice president of business development for Lender Services.In his new role at Ellie Mae, Mr. Bergstrom will manage strategic lender relationships. "Bringing Gunnar onto our management team will help us expand our reach and serve the technology needs of the … wholesale and correspondent lenders," said Sig Anderman, chief executive officer of Ellie Mae. Ellie Mae can be found on the Web at http://www.elliemae.com.

Technology Investment Capital Corp., Greenwich, Conn., has announced the completion of a $15 million senior secured loan to MortgageIT Inc.MortgageIT is a full-service residential mortgage bank that originates mortgage loans via retail and wholesale offices and the Internet. The companies can be found on the Web at http://www.ticc.com and http://www.mortgageit.com.

RealEC Technologies, Santa Ana, Calif., has announced a strategic alliance with appraisal-technology provider ACI to improve appraisal delivery on behalf of lenders, appraisers, and appraisal management companies.The companies said the collaboration includes the use of RealEC's seamless connections and ACI's universal appraisal delivery system that incorporates automated rules, custom forms support, secure digital signatures, and an Extensible Markup Language exchange toolkit to bridge any loan origination or automated underwriting system. The standard ACI appraisal file includes the report, addendum, sketch, limiting conditions, photos, maps, and electronic signature, which gives the appraiser the opportunity to proof the report and attach an electronic signature before transmitting the completed report to RealEC. RealEC Technologies is a majority-owned subsidiary of Fidelity National Financial with significant equity ownership by Stewart Title Co. and LandAmerica Financial Group. RealEC and ACI can be found online at http://www.realec.com and http://www.aciweb.com.

Fidelity National Financial Inc., Jacksonville, Fla., has announced the acquisition of the 45% of Hansen Quality Loan Services Inc. -- a provider of collateral score products and automated valuation models to the mortgage and investment banking industries -- that it did not already own.The terms of the transaction were not disclosed. FNF said Hansen's collateral score products include quality control of closed-loan appraisals, loan portfolio assessment for securitization or sale, collateral evaluation at the outset of the underwriting process, and risk analysis in the extension of credit. "Hansen has been a strong contributor to our real estate information services group since the acquisition of a majority interest by Fidelity National Information Solutions in May 2002," said William P. Foley II, FNF's chairman and chief executive officer. The company can be found online at http://www.fnf.com.

The city of St. Louis has begun recording loan satisfactions via a "level 3" electronic recording initiative using technology from U.S. Recordings, a Saint Paul, Minn.-based company that provides mortgage recording systems.U.S. Recordings' InteleDocPlus was the system used to submit documentation electronically, and Fidlar Software's iDocument XF was used as the receiving system. U.S. Recordings can be found online at http://www.usrecordings.com.

Image Recognition Integrated Systems Group, a technology provider based in Brussels, Belgium, has released three new products designed to move paper documents and forms into a digital format.The products, though not geared only to the mortgage industry, are being used heavily by mortgage companies, according to IRIS. The first product, Readiris Pro 9 Corporate Edition, is a tool that converts documents, files in Portable Document Format, and business cards into electronic documents. IRISPdf 2.5 Server is the new version of I.R.I.S. Production OCR Server. It's a networkable application that can be used to store scanned documents in a specific folder and convert them to .pdf or .rtf format. Finally, Formiris Pro 5.1 is a software suite that captures, sorts, and identifies all types of documents and forms entering a company or organization, irrespective of their size, layout, and contents. IRIS can be found on the Web at http://www.irislink.com.

Del Mar Database, the San Diego-based provider of DataTrac, a mortgage system that connects mortgage applications of the lender's choice through data input and management, has named three new vice presidents.Lisa Oelsner has been appointed vice president of product marketing and will work closely with newly appointed vice presidents and business managers Dan Stern and Rob Pommier. Del Mar said Ms. Oelsner has more than 15 years of management and marketing experience. She spent 10 years at Fannie Mae in various roles, including project manager, senior information technology consultant, and manager of business planning. Mr. Stern and Mr. Pommier have a combined 30 years of experience in operations and management, the company said. Del Mar can be found on the Web at http://www.delmardb.com.

GHR Systems Inc., Wayne, Pa., has appointed former Fiserv executive Ted Morse senior vice president of sales and business development for its Mortgage Automation Solutions division.Mr. Morse joins GHR from Fiserv, where he spent the past five years as senior vice president of sales, marketing and business development. GHR provides browser-based and client server platforms and applications for originating, processing, and closing loans for the residential mortgage, consumer, and small business lending industries. GHR can be found on the Web at http://www.ghrsystems.com.