Technology

David Aach has been named chief operating officer of Palisades Technology Partners, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., a supplier of software and application development services to the mortgage industry.In addition to managing the company's day-to-day operations, Mr. Aach will focus on direct sales and alliance strategies to support the company's continued growth, Palisades said. Mr. Aach has more than 28 years of mortgage technology and sales experience. Before joining Palisades, he served as national sales manager for John Harland Financial Solutions, and strategic account manager for Corillian. Mr. Aach also served as vice president of mortgage systems for Citicorp Mortgage, where he was instrumental in rolling out the first loan origination system to use laser-printed mortgage documents, Palisades said. The company can be found online at http://www.ptpusa.com.

E*Trade Financial Corp., Menlo Park, Calif., has launched Fair Compare, a Web-based mortgage shopping tool that it says allows consumers to objectively and anonymously compare the total package price of any lender's mortgage offer with a similar loan product offered by E*Trade Mortgage.E*Trade said the product was developed in response to anticipated changes in the mortgage interest rate environment, primarily to address two frustrations many consumers encounter when shopping for a mortgage: inability to compare pricing on an "apples-to-apples" basis and difficulty in obtaining a firm, all-inclusive quote that will not change before closing. According to Robert Bernabe, head of E*Trade Financial's retail mortgage lending operation, the tool will help consumers better understand the lending process. "This consultative approach is something that has been missing in the industry for some time," he said. "The consumer should have an offer upfront that is firm and that allows them to know what they are getting into. This helps them go into that with their eyes wide open." E*Trade can be found on the Internet at http://www.etrade.com.

GreenPoint Mortgage, Novato, Calif., a national nonconforming lender, has successfully deployed the Empower! loan origination software offered by Fidelity Business Systems Group, a division of Fidelity National Financial Inc. located in Jacksonville, Fla.GreenPoint will use the software in all its origination and delivery channels, the company said. The lender specializes in alternative-A loans and closed more than $33 billion worth of the product in 2002. Fidelity Empower! was deployed to over 2,500 end users at GreenPoint. Additionally, the Empower! loan origination software system has been integrated with GreenPoint's loan servicing platform, which is provided by Fidelity Information Services. The successful conversion involved the migration of 1.17 million loans, representing 407 million rows of database information. Fidelity Empower! can be found on the Internet at http://www.empower.fnis.com.

Close to half of all mortgage broker lending in the United Kingdom -- which represents 19% of total U.K. lending -- is done online, according to a recent study.The study by TowerGroup and Frank Eve Consulting Ltd. shows that "real-time, Web-based technology has become indispensable for lenders to efficiently manage mortgage intermediary (mortgage broker) relationships, and for intermediaries to adapt to new Financial Services Authority regulation." Tower Group can be found online at http://www.towergroup.com.

Online Documents Inc., Concord, Calif., has announced an inter-connection agreement that will enable lenders using its software and services to upload electronic mortgage documents directly to the BCE Emergis electronic lending platform.Online president Joan Ingham said electronic documents meeting the specifications of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization "are immediately available to Online's customers with a simple mouse click from any of our current document solutions.... This cooperative arrangement between Stewart, Online, and BCE Emergis offers lenders a turnkey method to move quickly to the forefront of the paperless mortgage revolution." Online Documents, a subsidiary of Stewart Information Services Corp., can be found online at http://www.onlinedocuments.com.

An affiliate of Fitch Ratings plans to release a version of the 2003 model the company uses to set credit enhancement levels for securitized, residential mortgages in the first quarter of next year.Among the things the model takes into account are regional home price bubbles and performance statistics that show alternative-A credits have a better and different performance record than B&C credits, Fitch analysts said at a meeting in New York. Fitch has been using this model to set credit enhancement levels since about the end of the first quarter of this year, said Sarbashis Ghosh, senior director in Fitch's structured finance residential mortgage area. The Nov. 5 meeting was its first public discussion of the model's underlying statistics, he said. Fitch Ratings can be found online at http://www.fitchratings.com.

Standard & Poor's has released an updated version of its credit risk analysis product for residential mortage-backed securities.S&P had added several new fields of information that "has been shown to play a critical role in a loan's foreclosure frequency or loss severity expectation" to the product. Among these is a compliance field that takes into account anti-predatory lending laws. S&P can be found online at http://www.standardandpoors.com.

Titan Investment Partners LLC, a private equity firm based in San Diego that is also the managing owner of Del Mar Database, will acquire Sollen Technologies LLC, Dallas.Sollen develops technology that provides real-time delivery of mortgage loan product and pricing information for U.S. mortgage lenders. Details of the deal were not disclosed, but Titan said it expects the deal to close within the next few weeks. Titan, a provider of mortgage technology services to over 230 lenders in the United States, is a member of the Relational Group, an asset management and financial advisory firm with more than $2.3 billion under management. Del Mar Database is the developer of the DataTrac and WebTrac business applications. The companies can be found on the Web at http://www.sollen.com and http://www.delmardb.com.

NetBank Inc., Atlanta, has reported net income of $15.6 million ($0.32 per share) for the third quarter, compared with $8.5 million a year earlier.Among the highlights the bank reported for the third quarter were record mortgage production of $5.7 billion, including record originations through the nonconforming channel of $589 million, and strategic retention by the bank of $586 million in company-originated loans. NetBank originated $5.1 billion in conforming mortgages during the quarter, a slight decrease from last quarter's record numbers. On the nonconforming side, the company originated $589 million in loans. NetBank can be found on the Web at http://www.netbank.com.

Fidelity National Financial Inc., Jacksonville, Fla., has reported net income of $277.3 million ($1.99 per share) for the third quarter, compared with $143.5 million ($1.16 per share) a year earlier.The company pointed out that its results included $52 million in pretax realized investment gain and $53 million in expense items that had been previously disclosed. Those items had a net effect of $1 million in pretax expenses on the results and less than one-half-cent on earnings per share, FNF said. Fidelity National can be found on the Web at http://www.fnf.com.