But first, the Appraisal Foundation announced it elected Shawn McGowan as chair of its new seven-member board of trustees who will start their terms on Jan. 1.

The Federal Reserve announced that more than two-thirds of last year’s 93 billion U.S. noncash payments were made electronically, with debit cards being the most frequently used electronic payment type, while less than a third were made with a check. The Fed’s 2007 study of noncash payments showed that check payments decreased within the 2003 to 2006 period, but all types of electronic payments have increased, with automated clearinghouse payments having the highest rate of growth. Nonetheless, the 33 billion checks written last year indicate they’ll be around for some time and underscore the ongoing importance of check electronification.

Endeca Technologies Inc. said it is working with IBM to introduce Risk Insight, a solution that provides to lenders “unprecedented transparency” into risk portfolio dynamics to better manage risk. While traditional credit risk-management tools provide only limited support of ad-hoc investigation, identification of risk concentrations, and proactive portfolio management, Risk Insight’s interactive dashboard of key portfolio performance indicators are “dynamically” summarized and visually presented to ease identification of drivers and concentrations of risk.

Mortgage broker clients of Credit Communications Inc. now have access to Market Kinetix LLC’s Mortgage Action Plan credit analysis solution. The Internet-based tool provides a preview of how much each borrower’s credit score can be raised, a three-tier list of the specific actions a borrower can take to raise the score, and definitive information on the point increase each action will cause, Market Kinetix announced.

United Mortgage & Loan Investment LLC renewed their contract for the eMASON Clarifire application, a Web-based business process application it has used the past two years to automate workflow processes and share documents with more than 100 attorney firms and other external and internal users. The Clarifire hosted application has also been integrated with the internal loan services platform, Artemis Investment Planning and Control Solutions, to ensure accuracy of customer records and keep all United Mortgage systems up-to-date, eMASON said.

SearchMyLoan.com said it upgraded its search and pricing engine for a more comprehensive and specific loan search. With the enhancements, users can rank lenders in a preferred order, choose wholesale or correspondent lenders from a “lender availability list,” print pre-approval certificates and access rate sheets for products listed in search results. Additionally, users are now able to import or run credit with more than 168 credit reporting agencies from within the SearchMyLoan platform, which now also features an advertising engine that displays links to an advertised company’s Web sites and a brief summary of programs being promoted.

ProVest said it partnered with Database Services Inc. to provide an interface that reduces reporting time and data entry for process servers facing record-high foreclosure volumes. The interface allows users of Database’s Process Server’s Toolbox, which helps manage the data tracking work in progress and produces affidavits of service, invoices, statements, server reports and more, to automatically upload this data into ProVest’s proprietary management system.

NYLX announced the launch of NYLX Exchange, which it says is the mortgage industry’s only real-time information source on aggregated U.S. loan origination activity. The exchange is updated every five minutes to provide detailed timely market information on originations worth billions that pass daily through the NYLX system of data, eligibility and loan pricing solutions. The exchange eliminates the need for analysts to rely on monthly or year-end reports, time-delayed information, and estimates of competitive information, such as the most active investors or products, to adjust their business practices.

Motivity Solution introduced LenderBuilt, a technology co-development venture designed to help upgrade mortgage lenders’ current technology platform and overall business performance while limiting their resource investment, a news release stated. LenderBuilt will begin with the co-development of Movation, an enterprise lending solution, in an actual production environment.