Lenders amp up tech-savvy support

Transaction ‘dashboard’ by First American speeds lenders through closings; lenders use Overture to beef up eligibility, underwriting, pricing decision-making tools; DRI’s new Internet portal eases data management between lenders and borrowers; Ellie Mae’s partnership with Advectis lets lenders receive documents straight from the mortgage originator’s LOS; and MortgageHub adds Fair Isaac banking solutions to industry expertise.

Transaction 'dashboard' speeds lenders through closings

First American is offering the new Transaction Management Dashboard technology that promises to let lenders take a more proactive approach to the mortgage process. Read on to see how the system integrates with other lending and settlement applications, as well as how parties in the transaction chain should benefit.

The First American Corp. has launched a new settlement services technology for the lending industry that streamlines workflow management and processes associated with closing mortgage loans. First American’s Transaction Management Dashboard is an Internet application designed to change the loan process from a reactive model to a proactive and automated approach.

"Our customers are looking for process improvements and advances in technology in order to improve the speed, quality and customer service of the settlement process," said Roger S. Hull, chief information officer for The First American Corp. "Through development of this sophisticated technology for exception management, we are illustrating our ongoing commitment to assist lenders in streamlining closing processes, which in turn reduces costs for them and their clients."

Traditional loan processing and closing involves ordering, monitoring and receiving a number of products and services from multiple parties, the company said. In the past, service and software solutions relied on the end user to review, evaluate and respond to information from each party without proactively integrating the information or providing recommendations for next steps to be taken. Transaction Management Dashboard changes the current model to one where status information provided by any party involved in the transaction triggers creation of a new action plan or modifies the existing action plan for the lender.

Transaction Management Dashboard continuously communicates with both the lender’s loan origination software and the vendor’s fulfillment platform for real-time integration of information from all parties. The system evaluates the status of each loan and refines the steps or exceptions to be managed by the lender’s staff. Further, it keeps a detailed audit log of all recommend steps and tracks compliance with these steps.

Transaction Management Dashboard conforms to industry standards, including the Mortgage Standards Maintenance Organization’s (MISMO) designation for XML and Web services.

Lenders use Overture to beef up eligibility, underwriting, pricing decision-making tools

Overture Technologies, a developer of automated underwriting systems, has launched the Overture Decision Network, an on-demand network of eligibility, automated underwriting and pricing decision content for lenders, conduits and correspondents. With the Overture Decision Network, investor program guidelines and rate sheets are first tested and certified by the investor, then stored in the Overture Decision Library, where access is granted only to those entities with permission to access the information, the company said. The Overture Decision Network helps to mitigate the losses incurred by misinterpreted, inaccurate or inaccessible investor data.

The Overture Decision Network provides anytime access to the information that clearly defines a specific investor’s desired loan parameters, so lenders know which loan characteristics an investor will or will not accept. According to the company, all guideline and rate information is tested and certified by the investor, so lenders can be assured that the information is valid, and because the investor’s information is proprietary, the Overture Decision Network encodes the data and stores it in the secured Overture Decision Library.

"With the Overture Decision Network, lenders can increase their chances of first purchase success by accessing this content any time during the loan process and aligning their loans according to specific lender guidelines at earlier stages in the cycle,” said Peter Carroll, general manager of Mortgage Business at Overture Technologies. “And investors benefit because they receive accurately underwritten loans, which not only eases their minds, but also reduces the amount of due diligence they have to conduct."

DRI Internet portal eases data management between lenders, borrowers

DRI Management Systems adds an Internet-based web portal to ease the management of data exchanged between selected service providers and their clients

DRI Management Systems, a provider of default management solutions for the mortgage industry, has deployed a Web services portal for its flagship software, The Default Solution. Through this portal, The Default Solution now features additional connectivity to third party services providers via the Internet, the company said.

The portal’s hosted environment will allow current DRI clients the opportunity to request and receive specific information from their third-party vendors right from within The Default Solution.

"The new Web services portal reduces the amount of time it traditionally takes to request and receive information from third parties, and reduces the number of errors normally associated with entering data manually from a hard copy source document," said Duke Olrich, president of DRI Management Systems. "It essentially enables our clients to service more defaulted loans per employee than ever before."

The types of services incorporated into this Web portal offering are credit, appraisals, automated valuations, title reports, broker price opinions, flood certification and insurance, skip tracing and second lien analysis.

The Default Solution is offered as a suite of default management software that enables loan servicers to manage and automate the handling of defaulted loans. The technology integrates to a servicer’s core servicing system, enhancing it with tools to address the changes presented by defaulted loans. Each module can be deployed independently to achieve a particular goal, or several modules can be deployed in unison for a complete default management solution.

Based in Newport Beach, Calif., DRI Default Management Services offers a suite of integrated default management software that can be used singularly or in tandem, and which can be interfaced with any other servicing or accounting system. DRI’s flagship technology, The Default Solution, enables companies to minimize the required overhead normally associated with preventing and responding to defaulted loans while managing and automating the servicing of those loans, including prime and non-prime mortgage loans as well as secured and unsecured consumer loans.

Ellie Mae partnership links broker, lender lines

Ellie Mae has partnered with Advectis Inc., the provider of BlitzDocs Collaboration Suite to enable seamless connectivity between Ellie Mae’s Encompass Mortgage Automation System and BlitzDocs, and empowers mortgage originators to transmit their electronic loan documents via EllieMae’s LenderConnect solution to lenders using BlitzDocs.

LenderConnect is Ellie Mae’s electronic delivery solution that enables loan originators and lenders to exchange loan file data, underwriting conditions and loan status information with the a click of a button, the company said. The Web-based BlitzDocs collaborative document network allows mortgage participants to capture, submit, underwrite, audit, share, deliver and archive loan documents. As a result of this partnership, lenders using BlitzDocs can sign up with Ellie Mae to receive loan documents straight from a broker’s Encompass system to the BlitzDocs network.

Originators gather and store their loan documents in the Encompass eFolder and the integration to BlitzDocs allows for uploading of eFolder contents directly to the lender’s BlitzDocs site. eFolder documents can include items such as settlement service reports, borrower documents like W2s and bank statements and signed disclosure forms.

"Ellie Mae has always been focused on ease of use," said Jonathan Corr, chief strategy officer of Ellie Mae. "With our eFolder, we’ve enabled originators to gather electronic versions of critical loan documents, and now our partnership with Advectis helps our customers simplify and expedite receipt of those documents by the lender. Lenders using our LenderConnect solution can now use the BlitzDocs system to receive electronic loan documents directly from the originator’s Encompass system, all with very little effort on their part. We're expanding our solutions to bring even more benefit to brokers and lenders alike."

MortgageHub adds Fair Isaac banking solutions to industry expertise

Fair Isaac Corp. and ISGN, the parent company of MortgageHub, has acquired key assets and products associated with Fair Isaac’s mortgage banking division, with plans to integrate them with MortgageHub. The transaction expands MortgageHub’s technologies and services for mortgage lenders, and provides Fair Isaac's mortgage customers with access to additional industry-specific solutions and expertise.

MortgageHub is a provider of Internet-based systems for the mortgage industry’s wholesale, correspondent, retail and servicing channels. The company is adding Fair Isaac products and services including the Diamond loan origination solution, the BridgeLink e-Services network for the mortgage industry, the LSAMSTM servicing system, the TCLTM construction lending system, the LenStar default management communications network, the FORTRACS default management system, and other technologies.

Fair Isaac mortgage division customers will experience no disruption to their current services and agreements, the company said. Further, MortgageHub has offered employment to Fair Isaac’s 61 mortgage division employees, who are primarily located in Norcross, Ga. MortgageHub also has indicated that it is looking to expand.

While we’ve determined that certain aspects of our mortgage industry business no longer fit Fair Isaac’s longterm business strategy, we will continue to support mortgage lenders every day through offerings like FICO scores, custom analytics, marketing services and other decision management technologies that help them make their best customer decisions," said Dr. Mark Greene, CEO of Fair Isaac.

With the technology and staff added to the MortgageHub portfolio through this acquisition, the company believes it is even better positioned to offer end-to-end products and services to customers. In addition, with this transaction MortgageHub is acquiring more than 150 mortgage customers and more than 700 vendor partners through the BridgeLink network.

In addition to this transaction, Fair Isaac also is considering future alliance opportunities with ISGN that would take advantage of identified synergies that exist between the organizations.

Fair Isaac’s mortgage banking division was established in 2004, when the company acquired London Bridge Software Holdings plc. Decision technologies for collections and recovery that were added through that acquisition continue to be a cornerstone in Fair Isaac’s roster of analytics-powered solutions for the customer lifecycle.

Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.