Technology

A new program introduced by E*Trade Group Inc.'s E*Trade Mortgage, Menlo Park, Calif., will enable consumers to lock in an interest rate now and transfer it to the next home they purchase, instead of paying off the old loan and applying for a new loan at potentially higher rates.The company says its Mortgage on the Move program will only be available for a limited time, but will be offered nationwide. E*Trade said it expects this program to drive overall purchase-money product volume for E*Trade Mortgage. While popular in Canada, the concept of a portable mortgage has yet to catch on in the United States, though homebuilders hope that it will. After refinancing into a lower-interest-rate loan, borrowers are often hesitant to trade up to a larger home if it means paying a significantly higher interest rate on their next loan. This often translates into slower new home sales. E*Trade can be found on the Web at http://www.etrade.com.

Rock Holdings, the parent company of Quicken Loans and Rock Financial, has filed applications with federal banking regulators to operate "Rock Bank" as an FDIC-insured, community and Internet-based bank.The bank, to be headquartered in Michigan, will capitalize on Quicken's success in online lending, said Dan Gilbert, chairman of Rock Holdings. "We are thrilled that we will soon be able to offer an array of traditional banking products to our loyal customer base, backed by great customer service and the convenience of online banking," he said. Quicken Loans will become a subsidiary of Rock Bank.

Despite its cyclical nature, the mortgage lending business is really a growth industry, the chief executive officer of Fidelity National Information Solutions told an FNIS conference May 28."It may be cyclical, but it’s more growth than cycle," Patrick F. Stone said at the Valuation Innovation & Leadership Summit in Laguna Beach, Calif. The audience of about 150 was made up of mortgage lenders, settlement services providers, technology vendors, consultants, and the news media. The company hosted the summit to discuss issues surrounding collateral valuation, but Mr. Stone assured attendees that it would not be a "commercial" for his firm, which offers a number of products and services, including automated valuation models. FNIS, based in Santa Barbara, Calif., is a subsidiary of Fidelity National Financial, which can be found online at http://www.fnf.com.

Fidelity National Financial Inc., Irvine, Calif., which owns approximately 66% of Fidelity National Information Solutions, Santa Barbara, Calif., has announced a proposal to acquire all the remaining outstanding shares of FNIS.The proposal represents a fixed exchange ratio of 0.805 shares of FNF common stock for each share of FNIS, the companies said. Based on FNF's closing price of $38.36 on May 23, the proposed offer price would total $24.70 per share of FNIS, a 25.4% premium to the latter's closing price of $19.70 on that date. "With FNF's recent acquisition and the formation of Fidelity Information Services, we believe it makes strategic sense to fully integrate FNIS back into FNF," said FNF president Raymond R. Quirk. "FNIS can better capitalize on the significant technology resources of FIS, and we can provide more cohesive technology solutions to our customers by combining all our resources at FNF." The companies can be found online at http://www.fidelitynational.com and http://www.fnis.com.

James W. Horne, a former chief information technology officer with the Mortgage Bankers Association of America, has been named manager of the technology consulting division of Mortgage Dynamics Inc., McLean, Va.Mr. Horne was most recently vice president for electronic financial services at Wave Systems Corp. He was previously vice president and chief IT officer at the MBA and president and chief operating officer of the MBA's electronic commerce and business technology subsidiary, Lender Technologies. "Technology is quickly becoming the most prominent differentiator in the mortgage industry, allowing technology-savvy companies to gain significant ground on their competitors," said Mary Bruce Batte, a managing director at Mortgage Dynamics. "Our clients want to identify and implement the most beneficial technologies, and that has been Jim's focus for the past few years." The company can be found online at http://www.mortgagedynamics.com.

Technology consulting firm CC Pace, Fairfax, Va., has entered a reseller agreement with Dorado Corp., a demand chain management firm based in San Mateo, Calif., to deliver CC Pace's LGXpress as a Dorado .MOR Web Service.LGXpress is a browser-based interface to the Department of Veterans Affairs’ paperless loan guaranty process. LGXpress speeds up the loan guaranty process and reduces the lender's cost of processing a VA loan. The .MOR version of LGXpress is expected to be available in the third quarter as the first step in a comprehensive Web-services-based government loan package that lenders can use as an integrated part of their origination system. The companies can be found online at http://www.ccpace.com and http://www.dorado.com.

California's San Bernardino County has awarded Bid4Assets Inc., Silver Spring, Md., a three-year contract to auction tax-defaulted properties on its website.Bid4Assets said the county's first auction under the contract has begun, featuring approximately 5,500 tax-defaulted properties (including parcels and timeshares) with staggered close times ranging from May 12 to May 23. The parcels include residential, commercial, and agricultural lots, and the timeshares are located at four resorts. The company said San Bernardino County formerly held annual tax sale auctions that resulted in the sale of only 400 properties per year out of 2,500 offered, a 16% success rate. In a pilot program last August, the county contracted with Bid4Assets to auction tax-defaulted properties online, and the auction resulted in a 95% success rate, Bid4Assets said. The company can be found online at http://www.bid4assets.com.

Mavent Inc., Irvine, Calif., has announced that its 2comply Expert System can help lenders assure secondary market investors that assignee liability risks are limited and quantifiable.The company noted that Fitch Ratings recently announced revisions to its rating criteria to account for risks posed by anti-predatory-lending laws that subject investors in residential mortgage-backed securities to liability. "Predatory lending liability is increasing in both scale and scope, and has become a serious threat to the success of high-volume, multijurisdictional lenders," said Tim Green, Mavent's chief executive officer. "2comply not only reduces the risk of liability to lenders. 2comply can also reduce the risk of assignee liability, thus increasing the loan's value to purchasers." Mavent noted that Fitch's new criteria require additional credit enhancement for RMBS deals containing loans subject to assignee liability. That change "has the potential to significantly affect the economics of structured finance transactions," Mavent said. The company can be found online at http://www.mavent.com.

MERS, an electronic loan registry based in Vienna, Va., has reported the registration of its 15 millionth loan.The loan was registered April 30 by First Magnus Financial Corp., Tucson, Ariz., MERS said. R.K. Arnold, president and chief executive officer of MERS, said the loan registry "is capturing well over 40% of all the mortgage loans originated in the United States." MERS, or Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, can be found on the Internet at http://www.mersinc.org.

Barry Diller's USA Interactive, New York, has signed a deal to buy LendingTree, Charlotte, N.C., for a price of between $626 million and $735 million in stock, Mr. Diller said in a May 5 conference call.Mr. Diller called LendingTree the "perfect solution" to his firm's search for an offering that combined financial services and real estate, because both are highly fragmented industries with large growth potential for online services. He noted that LendingTree has 67% brand awareness among consumers. The USAI conglomerate already owns Expedia, Hotels.com, Ticketmaster, and the Home Shopping Network. The companies expect the deal to close in late summer or early fall. The companies can be found online at http://www.usainteractive.com and http://www.lendingtree.com.