Technology

LION Inc., Seattle, has reported net income of $156,000 for the first quarter, compared with a net loss of $41,000 a year earlier.Revenue for the quarter totaled $1.8 million, up 18% from $1.5 million in the first quarter of 2002. The company, a provider of online services that connect brokers to consumers and lenders, touted the success of its new loan origination system, which it said added approximately 250 new LOS users in the first quarter through an alliance with ABC Virtual. "This early adoption supports the company's new performance-based business model by producing a new revenue stream generated by transaction fees," said David Stedman, LION's president and chief executive officer. LION can be found online at http://www.lioninc.com.

Mortgage reform may be uncertain, but the trend toward offering one-fee mortgages and bundled services will continue, according to Tom DellaTorre, president of Transamerica Vendor Management and Consulting, a recently formed joint venture.Touted as a “first-of-its-kind” venture between Transamerica Real Estate Information Services, Dallas, and ValuAmerica Consulting, Pittsburgh, TA VMAC was formed to help lenders manage mortgage settlement services more efficiently and economically, and to enable them to enter Guaranteed Mortgage Package Agreements with borrowers. While ABN Amro was first to market with one-fee mortgages, Mr. DellaTorre told MortgageWire that Transamerica REIS has found that many lenders are looking for ways to do the same thing successfully. He said ValuAmerica's proprietary electronic order system, ValuNet, enables TA VMAC to offer lenders the widest choice in selecting, monitoring, delivering, and pricing settlement services. Transamerica REIS can be found online at http://www.transamericafinance.com/tfc/realestate.asp, and ValuAmerica can be found at http://www.valuamericaconsulting.com.

IndyMac Bancorp Inc., Pasadena, Calif., the holding company for IndyMac Bank, has reported net earnings of $36.9 million for the first quarter and record earnings per share of $0.66.The savings and loan produced a record $6.5 billion of mortgage loans in the first quarter, up 59% from the level of a year earlier, IndyMac said. The company's mortgage pipeline stood at a record $6 billion as of March 31, up 101% from that of a year earlier. IndyMac's portfolio of mortgage loans serviced for others totaled $28 billion, up 22% from the level recorded on March 31, 2002. IndyMac can be found online at http://www.indymacbank.com.

WellFound Technology Inc., Marietta, Ga., has announced the release of its Mortgage Integration Framework, which enables disparate software systems, within and between enterprises, to communicate with one another and share data in real time.The system is compliant with standards established by the Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization and relies on open, standards-based software components and concepts, including XML and Web services, the company said. Though the system is comprehensive, it is also modular, which means users can implement parts of the system as needed. WellFound can be found on the Web at http://www.wellfound.com.

Data-Vision Inc., Mishawaka, Ind., has expanded its relationship with Lavonia, Mich.-based Dynatek Inc. and will now fully integrate its RemoteDocs electronic data exchange services into Dynatek's MORvision loan origination system.The company made the announcement April 30 at the 11th annual Dynatek Users Conference in Lavonia. In addition to the RemoteDocs expansion, Dynatek is also fully integrating Data-Vision's LoanQuoter online mortgage application facility. That tool provides online rates, loan status, programs, and reports. An online decisioning module is also being added to offer prospective borrowers a preliminary response to their application. The companies can be found online at http://www.d-vision.com and http://www.dynatek.com.

Framework Inc., Tarrytown, N.Y., and DocuTech Corp., Idaho Falls, Idaho, have announced the formation of a strategic partnership that will provide an automated, universal mortgage fulfillment and documentation system for lenders.Framework's LendWare Document Manager is a credit fulfillment platform that automates the decisioning and delivery of tailored financial systems for all distribution channels, the companies said. It has been integrated via Extensible Markup Language, or XML, to DocuTech's documentation technology, which is backed by an extensive document library that includes compliant SMART (securable, manageable, achievable, retrievable, transferable) documents that bind data, presentation, and signatures into a single electronic file, they said. "With DocuTech's SMART Doc capability and electronic data and document delivery benefits, LendWare users will be able to enact online review, validation, data exchange, approvals, and closings," said Ty Jenkins, president and chief executive officer of DocuTech. DocuTech can be found online at http://www.docutechcorp.com, and more information on Framework's LendWare technology can be found at http://www.lendware.com.

Fidelity National Financial Inc., Santa Barbara, Calif., and Bank of America Corp. have announced that they will combine their resources to create two new companies with the goal of providing end-to-end mortgage fulfillment outsourcing.The first firm, called Financial ServiceSolutions LLC, will be a 50/50 joint venture to integrate their technologies and deliver the mortgage fulfillment platform. The second, the technology development arm, will be called Financial ServiceSolutions Information Systems LLC and will be owned jointly by BoA and FNF subsidiary Fidelity National Information Solutions Inc. The technologies that FNF and BoA will bring to bear for new outsourcing customers include the RealEC transaction management platform, which is 60% owned by FNIS, and Lendware, operated by Framework Inc., which was acquired by BoA in February. Greg Sullins will head the new outsourcing firm as president and chief executive officer. He was formerly BoA's senior vice president for quality and productivity. Dwayne Walker, president and chief operating officer of FNIS, will serve as president of FSIS. The companies can be found online at http://www.fnf.com, http://www.fnis.com, and http://www.bankofamerica.com.

Fiserv Inc., Brookfield, Wis., has reported record earnings of $624.8 million ($0.38 per share) for the first quarter, up 11% from $560.7 million ($0.33 per share) a year earlier.Leslie M. Muma, Fiserv's president and chief executive officer, said most business units performed at or above expectations during the quarter, touting in particular the company's "full suite of automation services and products" and its "broad offering of business process outsourcing capabilities." The company provides data processing and information management systems to banks, mortgage lenders, and other financial institutions.

In recent testing, a single copy of Fiserv's MortgageServ system on a single-image IBM hardware platform successfully processed 10 million loans during a single nightly window, according to Fiserv.Benchmark results of the testing -- conducted by IBM Capacity Planning Services, Cary, N.C., under the direction of BearingPoint Inc. -- indicated that the system would scale beyond that if used in an IBM Sysplex environment, Fiserv said. Sadu Thinakal, president of Fiserv Mortgage Servicing Systems, said the Fiserv system's proven scalability would eliminate the need for mega-servicers to break their portfolios into artificial segments that require multiple company numbers. "MortgageServ has no such technology or architectural limitations, eliminating the unnecessary processing complexities and bottlenecks that stand in the way of growth and profitability," Mr. Thinakal said. Fiserv can be found on the Web at http://www.fiserv.com.

In a move that will further focus Basis100, Toronto, on the U.S. marketplace, the company has agreed to sell its Canadian Lending Solutions division to FiLogix Inc., another Canadian firm.Under the terms of the agreement, FiLogix will acquire all the assets of CLS, including the rights to Basis100’s mortgage technology -- such as MortgageBase, MortgageBase Plus, HomeBase, ConsumerBase, and LenderBase -- for $16.1 million, subject to certain adjustments. The agreement also gives FiLogix exclusive usage rights to BasisXpress in the Canadian market, and Basis100 retains the software rights to all areas outside Canada. "This sale is part of a strategic redefinition of the company, and allows us to focus our attention and our resources on the U.S. marketplace," said Joseph J. Murin, president and chief executive officer at Basis100. "Our goal for this year is to generate 80% of our overall revenue from the U.S. mortgage lending market." The companies can be found on the Internet at http://www.basis100.com and http://www.filogix.com.