Technology

E-Loan Inc., Dublin, Calif., has introduced Loan Advisor, the latest addition to its family of products offering consumer debt advice.The product helps solve debt-related problems by asking about objectives, credit scores, loan details, and tax information in order to recommend a loan that offers the lowest payments or the lowest after-tax cost, the company said. The recommendation takes into account key parameters such as the loan-to-value ratio, credit, actual closing costs, and available interest rates. "The Loan Advisor helps consumers by weighing all options available to them and providing an unbiased recommendation on the lowest-cost solution for their individual scenario," said Joe Kennedy, president and chief executive officer of E-Loan. "It is, to the best of our knowledge, the most sophisticated debt advice tool ever developed." The company can be found on the Web at http://www.eloan.com.

MERS OnLine, Vienna, Va., has reported the registration of its one millionth loan.MERS OnLine, which was introduced in May 2000, is the Internet-based access point to the MERS System, enabling members to perform all transactions in an online, real-time environment. It was created as an alternative to a client-server based system, eliminating the need to buy proprietary software and licensing agreements when registering loans on the system, MERS said. "One million loans registered on MERS OnLine signifies a growing acceptance by small- to medium-sized lenders of the MERS System," said R.K. Arnold, president and chief executive officer of MERS. MERS can be found on the Internet at http://www.mersinc.org.

Fidelity National Financial Inc., Irvine, Calif., has increased its stake in LendingTree Inc., Charlotte, N.C., by purchasing 1.84 million shares of preferred stock held by a unit of Capital Z Financial Services Partners.This stock can be converted into 2.0 million shares of LendingTree common stock. The price paid was not disclosed. Prior to the deal, FNF held 1.6 million shares of LendingTree common stock. FNF and its affiliates now own 12.4% of the total voting stock in the company. Capital Z remains LendingTree's largest shareholder, owning 15.4% of the voting stock. "We feel that LendingTree is a compelling strategic partner for our comprehensive suite of real estate settlement products and services," said FNF chairman and chief executive William P. Foley II. Capital Z is also a significant shareholder in Aames Financial Corp., the Los Angeles-based subprime lender. LendingTree can be found on the Web at http://www.lendingtree.com.

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.