Technology

Finali Corp., Westminster, Colo., has announced an agreement to provide outsourced customer care to First Franklin Financial Corp., a subprime mortgage lender based in San Jose, Calif.The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Under the arrangement, Finali's customer care agents will respond to queries and will be complemented by their netSage Virtual Agent on First Franklin's website. The live agents will provide outbound communication to screen applicants and route them to the appropriate loan officers at First Franklin. "Our industry is booming, and we were looking for an innovative way to increase our capacity to handle increased volume without making significant investments in infrastructure," said First Franklin managing director Carole McCormick. "At First Franklin, we believe we've found a unique offering in Finali's combination of customer service experts with its virtual assistants." The companies can be found on the Web at http://www.finali.com and http://www.first-franklin.com.

LION Inc., Seattle, has formed an alliance with Silver Spring, Md.-based LoanRover Decision Systems that will see LoanRover's subprime decision engine distributed to LION's network of mortgage originators and lenders.LION says its network includes over 6,500 mortgage brokers, 250 lenders, and 20,000 limited members, all of whom will now have access to LoanRover's software. The multilender decision engine will allow broker members of LION's network to submit a file and receive instantly priced, conditional loan approvals from subprime lenders. LION said this move would put the company closer to its goal of providing a turnkey mortgage technology system. LION already offers lead generation, websites, loan search services, and loan processing software. The companies can be found online at http://www.lioncorp.net and http://www.loanrover.com.

Factual Data Corp., Loveland, Colo., has been chosen by Bankers Systems Inc., St. Cloud, Minn., to provide credit services to its ARTA Lending Documentation system clients on an exclusive basis.Together, the two firms will offer the ARTA Lending Credit Bureau Access Module, which will allow ARTA users to order merged credit reports from the main credit bureau repositories using their own repository codes. The new module will allow users to complete the credit application, send the request, and receive the credit information without having to exit from ARTA Lending. The companies did not specify when the new module would be ready for the market. Factual Data's website address is http://www.factualdata.com.

Primedia Inc., a media publishing company, has acquired Boston-based Domania Inc., the struggling technology firm that uses Web-based consumer "bait" to help lenders stave portfolio runoff.Domania, provides home price information to consumers and customer retention services to Countrywide, IndyMac and other lenders, but had come dangerously close to running out of cash. Primedia is a leading targeted content and integrated marketing solutions company in both the consumer and business-to-business sectors, with 2001 sales from continuing businesses of $1.6 billion.

TradeWeb LLC has reported that it has set a new record in trading more than $200 billion in to-be-announced mortgage-backed securities during October.The company said it also set a daily trading volume record during the month when more than $19 billion traded in a single day. TradeWeb can be found on the Web at tradeweb.com.

ABN Amro, Ann Arbor, Mich., has reported that changes to its mortgage.com consumer website in September have let to a 90% increase in loan approvals and a 76% jump in rate locks.The revised website now features dynamic questioning to speed the loan application process, immediate access to credit data, instant loan approvals and rate locks, and information for consumers researching home loan options. The dynamic-questioning feature reduced the number of questions asked of mortgage.com's loan applicants by up to 80% from its previous application process, by asking only those questions that are important for that particular customer, the company said. Garth E. Graham, ABN Amro's senior vice president of electronic commerce, said simplifying the loan application process and the company's OneFee program are keys to the company's online success. ABN Amro's consumer website address is http://www.mortgage.com.

GMAC-Residential Funding Corp., Minneapolis, has entered into an agreement to use Toronto-basedBasis100 Inc.'s Solimar Valuation Technology. GMAC-RFC, an equity investor inBasis100, will employ the Solimar technology as one of its automated valuation model vendors to secure automatedproperty valuations for loan purchase decisions and for enhanced appraisal diligence. Solimar Valuation Technologyprovides an estimated value for a specific residential property in real time, via the Internet. The companies'website addresses are http://www.basis100.com and http://www.gmacrfc.com.

Dorado Corp., San Mateo, Calif., says it will provide an online collaborative environment for mortgagebrokers who have been approved by GreenPoint Mortgage, New York, as part of a product and service agreement betweenthe two companies. Dorado, an application service provider, will contribute itsRelationship Commerce Platform and an e-Collaborator portal application that has been configured for wholesalemortgage lending. More than 15,000 approved brokers will be able to access GreenPoint's specialty loan productsusing the service, Dorado said. GreenPoint Mortgage is a subsidiary of GreenPoint Financial Corp. The companies'website addresses are http://www.dorado.com and http://www.greenpoint.com.

Precept, Oakland, Calif., has announced the development of a commercial mortgage origination systemand said it has started accepting deals. Precept is an exchange designed for brokers, mortgage lenders, and borrowers.Both Standard & Poor's and Morgan Stanley have made investments in Precept,the company said. Morgan Stanley has agreed to act as a "market maker," effectively ensuring that therewill be bids on certain types of loans. S&P has approved Precept's underwriting process and agreed to providean independent assessment of underwritten cash flow for loans auctioned on the system. The company's website addressis http://www.preceptmortgage.com.

McCracken Financial Software Inc., the Billerica, Mass.-based subsidiary of GMAC Commercial Holding Corp., said a newly formed subsidiary has purchased substantially all the assets of Univest Financial Services LLC for an undisclosed amount. McCracken's subsidiary will use the Univest name, and the executive staffs at both companies will remain the same. McCracken president Frank McCracken said Univest's O2S browser-based underwriting system "complements our existing suite and is in line with our strategy of offering browser-based, ASP solutions." The companies' website addresses are http://www.mccrackenfs.com, http://www.ufsnet.com, and http://www.gmaccm.com.