Technology

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.

Cipher Data Resources, Santa Ana, Calif., and Ellie Mae Inc., Pleasanton, Calif., have entered intoa marketing partnership to provide the Cipher1 tax analysis software program to Ellie Mae's customer base of mortgageindustry professionals. Instant access to Cipher1, the first tax analysis programto be offered through Ellie Mae, is available to mortgage professionals who use the Ellie Mae Business Center viaa direct Cipher Data link, the companies said. The companies maintain that the addition of Cipher1 to Ellie Maetools and resources will save time and minimize work disruption. The companies' website addresses are http://www.cipherdata.com and http://www.elliemae.com.

LandAmerica Financial Group Inc., Richmond, Va., has announced that its wholly owned subsidiary, LandAmerica OneStop,will acquire Primis Inc., an Atlanta-based provider of online real estate-related services. The terms of the deal were not disclosed. LandAmerica OneStop provides coordinated title and RE-relatedservices to lenders, builders, real estate agents, and Internet aggregators. Charles H. Foster Jr., chairman andchief executive officer of LandAmerica, said Primis's appraisal unit in the past two years "has gained considerablemarket share, providing a full range of electronic services across the country while building one of the largestappraisal databases of geographically dispersed property information." Primis CEO James Schaper will becomeCEO of LandAmerica OneStop after the merger of Primis into its operations, and the company will be based in Primis'sAtlanta headquarters. Major title and closing fulfillment service centers will be located in Richmond, Va.; Dallas;and Orange County, California. The companies' website addresses are http://www.landam.com and http://www.primis.com.

Capital Z Financial Services Fund II, New York, has purchased approximately 1.2 million shares ofLendingTree common stock at $7.98 per share and received warrants to purchase an additional 360,000 shares of commonstock at the same price, for a total investment of $10 million. The investmentincreases Capital Z's position as LendingTree's largest shareholder from 21.2% to 26.2%. Capital Z retains theright to receive additional shares of LendingTree common stock at a lower price if LendingTree raises additionalfunds. LendingTree's website address is http://www.lendingtree.com.

Dorado, San Mateo, Calif., and OnePipeline, Salt Lake City, have announced that they will integrateOnePipeline's third-party automated loan origination compliance system and Dorado's relationship commerce technologyinto Web-based sales and marketing systems for real estate offices. The serviceis designed to enable real estate agents to begin the loan origination process for clients, collaborate via theInternet with a broker's affiliate mortgage company, and receive compensation for the services they provide. Thecompanies said the offering will allow real estate agents to meet all state and federal laws and professional regulationswhile performing loan origination services. The companies' website addresses are http://www.dorado.com and http://www.onepipeline.com .

TradeWeb LLC, New York, has expanded its services to allow institutional investors to trade U.S.agency-issued securities and selected securities of supranational issuers with TradeWeb dealers. The product launch follows a four-month beta test that included live trading between six major bond dealersand more than 50 institutional investors, the company said. Trading volume exceeded $6 billion per month, and involvedsecurities issued by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Federal Home Loan Banks, the World Bank, the Inter-American DevelopmentBank, and the Asian Development Bank. The six global investment banks that took part in the beta test -- CreditSuisse First Boston, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, and Salomon SmithBarney -- have agreed to act as market makers for the new online agency market. "The U.S. Agency market, with morethan $1.7 trillion of debt outstanding and new, large bond issues coming on a regular basis, is a huge market opportunityfor TradeWeb," said Jim Toffey, president and chief executive officer of TradeWeb.

Fiserv Inc., Brookfield, Wis., has announced the acquisition of National Flood Services Inc., Kalispell,Mont., a provider of flood policy administration services to the insurance industry. Theterms of the deal were not disclosed. NFS is a third-party administrator for companies participating in the NationalFlood Insurance Program. Fiserv is a provider of information technology to the financial industry. Its websiteaddress is http://www.fiserv.com.

Freddie Mac has announced the successful purchase of an all-electronic mortgage. The mortgage was originated in Utah and made legally binding through the Electronic Signatures in Globaland National Commerce (E-SIGN) Act, which went into effect Oct. 1. Mountain America Credit Union, Salt Lake City,originated and closed the mortgage, and CUNA Mutual Mortgage Corp., Madison, Wis., is servicing it. The participantsused Digital Handshake technology from iLumin Corp. for the transaction. The Orem, Utah-based iLumin recently launchedDigital Handshake Server, which is designed for secure, private, legally binding, start-to-finish online transactions.Digital Handshake has been in a pilot-testing phase since June and currently includes partners Trans Union LLC;GMAC Mortgage; Bank of America; Stewart Title; and H&R Block Mortgage Corp. Organization and company websiteaddresses are http://www.freddiemac.com, http://www.mtnamerica.org, http://www.cunamutual.com, and http://www.ilumin.com.