Two big wholesalers have enhanced the process of loan closings for mortgage brokers.

On Monday, IndyMac Bank announced, iDraw, the latest advancement in its loan origination system, e-MITS, which gives brokers the ability to order, view and draw their own closing documents on line.

When brokers receive a "clear to close," the system allows them to draw docs on their schedule, enabling them to close loans faster, according to the Pasadena, Calif.-based company.

"The new iDraw technology," said IndyMac CEO Frank Sillman, "will empower brokers to better service their clients, drawing docs 24/7 in as little as 15 minutes."

Saving brokers time by speeding the loan approval process also was highlighted by the Impac Companies recently.

A week prior to IndyMac's announcement, Impac announced several user-friendly enhancements to its Impac Direct Access System for Lending web-based automated underwriting and pricing engine. That system reportedly enables brokers to receive underwriting decisions along with the corresponding pricing on the loan products that best meet a borrower's needs on the basis of income, assets and employment.

If everything meets Impac's guidelines, a loan is automatically approved and closed, explained an Impac spokeswoman.

"By organizing our loan products based on a borrower's needs," said Marci Davis, vice president and enterprise application manager for Irvine, Calif.-based Impac Funding Corp., "we're further streamlining the loan decision and pricing processes for our clients, saving them time."

Brokers don't even need to have extensive knowledge of Impac's loan products since the system finds products to match with borrowers, she noted.

Technology, and the continual advancements of that technology, is coming to define mortgage companies, the Impac spokeswoman added.

"Impac's technology is a major differentiator for the company, particularly in the Alt-A market," Davis said. "But Impac is not the only company that has a system like iDASL. We're going to more of a paperless system as the years go by and people get more proficient at using this type of technology."

Some smaller wholesalers are still doing the loan underwriting and approval process in house because of the way they work with a wide base of brokers.

"We don't have any tools that we can give to brokers to do the closing docs," said Leyla Torres, vice president, operations, at Rockville, Md.-based Tower Mortgage & Financial Services Co. "We don't have correspondents. We're dealing strictly with brokers one-on-one. When they send a loan to us, if it doesn't meet our guidelines, we don't do the loan."

Large wholesalers, such as IndyMac and Impac, she said, have many correspondents, brokers who do their own closing docs for them, as well as other lenders that send them loans.