Sales, Secondary Technology

But first, Internet Acquisition Group Inc., which assists companies with the purchasing and management of goods and services, announced it recently added mortgage clients to its growing customer roster.

Mortgage lenders using settlement service provider FirstClose will have access to First American eAppraiseIT appraisal and valuation services, the companies reported. All services by eAppraiseIT were integrated to the FirstClose platform, including 1004 full appraisals, 2055 drive by appraisals, desktop appraisals, and ability to view status of all appraisal orders.

Online legal document service provider LegalZoom.com announced that it won Entretech/PricewaterhouseCoopers’ fourth annual Entrepreneurship Award 2007, which honors growing, leading-edge companies in high-tech industries. LegalZoom.com says its services let consumers and small-business owners prepare and file legal documents for a fraction of what it costs to hire an attorney. Legalzoom.com reviews consumers’ answers to questions, reviews them for common mistakes and either sends the final documents to the customer or files them with the appropriate government agency.

Brokers and originators doing business with Flagstar Bank can now obtain secure e-signed mortgage documents through a custom plug-in to a la mode’s SureDocs system, according to a press release. The plug-in delivers SureDocs e-documents to the bank through Flagstar’s back-end processes over a secure connection and brokers are then able to log in to check processing status.

SunGard said its BanWare OpRisk solution was found to be a leader in operation risk management in a survey conducted by publication OpRisk & Compliance. The service provides a single software solution for operational risk management, corporate governance, regulatory compliance and internal audit. Based on the responses of the publication’s readers globally, the solution was ranked the top choice in four of five categories: scenario analysis functionality, op risk loss data collection, key risk indicators, and risk control and self-assessments.

Financial Crossing Inc. launched Liability Manager 3.0, which it says is “the financial industry’s most advanced mortgage and liability management solution.” The platform enables delivery of actionable advice on clients’ portfolios of mortgages and other consumer debt.

“Liability Manager helps financial institutions to grow their lending business while managing risk,” said Adrian Nazari, Financial CEO, in the statement. “That’s particularly important in today’s environment of rising interest rates, proliferation of non-traditional mortgages and calls for more effective control over product suitability and client communication.

Profit-based pricing provider Normis Solutions claims its Normis Price Optimizer Suite helps support regulatory requirements with its strong compliance framework through transparency, objectivity and risk management. The suite, which combines pricing analytics, price optimization, and price execution into a pricing strategy and process, increases profits and market share of 10 percent to 20 percent and provides insights about how prices impact customers and portfolio performance.

“Financial institutions must have adequate policies and procedures in place to ensure safe and sound lending practices that are compliant with current laws and regulations,” Jean Noonan, a counsel on compliance for banks and creditors, was quoted as saying in the release. “Profit-based Pricing provides lenders with a paper trail for each pricing decision, offering the visibility that regulators require and making it easier for historic pricing decisions to be audited and defended, should the need arise.”

CircleLending Inc. announced it has made available an online reverse mortgage calculator to complement Family Advantage, a private reverse mortgage line of credit funded by relatives or friends of a borrower and secured by real estate. The calculator can calculate a statistically probable loan term based on borrower gender, age and actuarial tables, and include their property’s appreciation rate. Plus, it offers loan-to-value ratio analysis, suggestions for adjusting the terms to achieve the expert-recommended 70-90 percent LTV, and the total annual loan cost comparison with other products.

Bridger Commercial Funding said it implemented the Commercial Servicing Transfer Standard from the Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization Inc. In conjunction with Midland Loan Services Inc., Bridger’s MISMO-based transfer is reportedly the first production transaction of its kind that uses Internet-based Extensible Markup Language, or XML, to exchange electronic real estate finance data & specifications. Bridger anticipates use of the standard will significantly improve the processes and turnaround times in exchanging information with Midland.

Chevy Chase Bank selected Fidelity National Information Services Inc.’s Advanced Commercial Banking Systems to support its growing commercial loan business, according to an announcement. Through the deployment of Advance origination and servicing solutions into Chevy’s back-office operations, Chevy will reportedly efficiently originate and service commercial loans, as these automate the entire range of commercial lending activity, from deal origination through settlement, accounting, and risk and loan management.

Standard Bank, a South Africa financial services group, also selected the Advanced product suite to provide a single global database for origination, loan servicing, trading and business intelligence. The suite will be the prime source of information for global exposure, capital management and management information across the bank’s commercial lending portfolio., according to an announcement.

Freddie Mac certified MortgageFlex Systems Inc. as one of six companies to offer a loan origination system interface that meets the v4.1 specifications of its automated underwriting system, Loan Prospector. This ensures MortgageFlex customers have a interface that provides “fast, seamless” access to Freddie’s full range of Loan Prospector products. MortgageFlex LoanQuest Residential Lending System automates the loan origination process from pre-qualification to commitment to secondary marketing.

Lenders First Choice’s title insurance and settlement services application was recently integrated into Calyx Software’s loan originations and processing system, which enables Lenders to use Calyx WebConnect technology for complete compatibility with Point and Point Data Server, the companies announced. The Calyx WebConnect technology allows brokers to launch the Lenders First transactional Web site directly from inside Point, enabling loan data to be sent and received without leaving the application. Lenders application data returned to Point is automatically updated in the pertaining loan file and any supporting documentation is stored within the file.

Luminent Mortgage Capital Inc. chose Veros Real Estate Solutions’s VeroVALUE AVM and VeroSELECT 2.0 collateral valuation and risk management platform to perform automated valuation due diligence on the whole loans it buys in the secondary market, according to an announcement. VeroSELECT 2.0 reportedly gives lenders absolute control of risk strategies with secure management of vendors, users and their own proprietary business processes. Chevy retained AVMetrics as a third-party administrator for the VeroSELECT platform for cascade management.

“We’ve been buying whole loans since the third quarter of 2005,” a Luminent executive was quoted as saying in the announcement. “What we saw with those early trades was a trend toward issues with respect to valuation of the property. So we’ve migrated our due diligence strategy to require some sort of valuation review on 100% of the loans we buy.“

Street Resource Group Inc. recently announced the launch of Warehouse Information Network, a “groundbreaking” independent, membership-based collaborative that provides automated risk mitigation services, shared industry information databases and forums for the exchange of ideas on issues related to mortgage warehouse lending. Under the network, the Warehouse Loan Registry Alert service will be the first automated, real-time risk mitigation service specifically designed to detect inter-warehouse fraud. WIN is also positioned to create a Closing Agent Registry Alert service that provides automated validation for problem agents and verifies risk-relevant closing agent information.

“WIN will function as a consortium to develop mortgage warehouse lending standards and practices as well as a vehicle to communicate as a collective group with other industries … which impact the business of warehouse lending,” according to the announcement.

IBERIABANK Corp. selected Varicent Software to deliver a comprehensive sales performance management platform for its retail banking business. Via a self-service dashboard of Varicent Sales Performance Management, retail sales representatives can track and monitor their performance to ensure it is reflecting the overall strategic goals of the bank.

Lawson & Associates Mortgage Planners had doubled its loan volume over the last year since implementing Salesforce for Financial Services, a combination of salesforce.com’s customer relationship management Salesforce Platform and industry applications from the salesforce.com partner community into a specific solution, according to a press release. The solution enables Lawson’s employees to share information both internally and externally with its lender and realtor partners and finalizing contracts is facilitated with the round-the-clock access to mortgage application data through a self-service portal.

“We initially contacted salesforce.com for a solution that provided a secure way for our sales and support teams to access information when working remotely,” said Dan Lawson, CEO and president of Lawson, in the announcement. “When we discovered the tremendous flexibility of Salesforce and learned we could easily customize it for our particular needs, we decided to extend that information access to our partners. By enabling the self-service portal, Salesforce gave us the foundation to deepen our relationships with the lenders and realtors that are critical to our success.”