Mortgage Compliance Solutions

Mortgage professionals scrambling to stay abreast of existing and upcoming rules and regulations can turn to several service providers offering solutions aimed at maintaining compliance throughout the lending process. While a few providers are unveiling new offerings, several highlighted how existing products and services can help keep clients compliant.

In its Jan. 10 press release, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau revealed the qualified mortgage rule, slated to take effect Jan. 1, 2014. The QM rule outlined the CFPB’s guidelines for lenders to help eradicate risky lending practices.

“Today’s regulatory environment is more dynamic than at any time in the past,” said Detwiler. “Our systems and our approach to compliance let our customers concentrate on lending [and] ensuring borrowers close on time. That’s what mortgage finance is all about.”

ClosingCorp’s Jan. 29 media statement highlighted two data technology tools, SmartGFE Service and Smart GFE Calculator, as solutions for lenders concerned about reconciling federal compliance with potential changes to mortgage disclosure requirements, which are slated for finalization this year. According to Closing Corp, both tools account for regulation changes and give users up-to-date capability despite revisions to disclosure forms, rules and local practices. More specifically, the SmartGFE Service allows lenders access to good faith estimates data that adheres to rules set by the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act.

On Dec. 26, Idaho-based DocuTech Corp. said it was leading a lender response to the CFPB on disclosure form testing through Project Catalyst. This CFPB initiative sought mortgage executives to test new disclosure forms that the CFPB created to outline closing costs and mortgage terms for consumers.

According to The Compliance Group Inc., mortgage servicers should focus on audit preparation or other action taken by government-service entities, the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the CFPB. The Compliance Group revealed on Nov. 15 that its compliance and risk services — including regulatory audit preparation, Servicing QC, enterprise risk management QC and servicing risk management — provide a mock audit exercise to evaluate their clients’ processes while looking specifically for compliance failures and what current quality control policies are not followed.

Risk mitigation solutions provider Interthinx showcased its new mortgage electronic registration system compliance audit service on Nov. 13. The Interthinx suite expansion was created to help MERS members avoid being out of compliance with new MERS requirements and receiving subsequent disciplinary action. Using a three-pronged approach, the MERS compliance audit service conducts independent, third party annual reviews, portfolio reconciliations on a monthly or quarterly basis and document validations and reviews.

Retreat Capital Management, a GSE-approved, high-level project management and advisory service offering component servicing and sub-servicing, announced, in late October that mortgage servicers faced difficulty developing economical methods for keeping afloat of industry regulations. Even CFPB-mandated regulations were hard to develop. With the CFPB’s proposal of several new rules that ranged from providing consumers with warnings before interest adjustments to direct and ongoing access to service personnel, Retreat Capital said mortgage professionals are compelled to use outsource services to leverage subject matter experts capable of integrating ever-changing compliance mandates.

On Oct. 22, IndiSoft introduced its RxOffice Compliance quality management platform for loan originators and servicers. IndiSoft claims its new platform improved processes related to quality control both pre- and post-funding, compliance mandates and underwriting processes. IndiSoft President and Chief Executive Officer Sanjeev Dahiwadkar said the technology was effective at helping the mortgage industry with loss mitigation and servicer auditing efforts in the wake of regulatory compliance that make these tasks time sensitive and requires quick work alongside detailed records of all activities.

[email protected], a new, fully automated loan quality product from First American Business Services LLC, was billed as a tool that improved consumer experience by helping lenders save time and resources through risk identification and mitigation. The Oct. 9 media release said [email protected] uses lender-defined rules to perform an automated evaluation of HUD-1 settlement statements and loan information. This evaluation flags potential risks and discrepancies in real-time during a juncture in the closing process where corrections are still feasible, and issues can be identified while still meeting closing deadlines.

Rounding out the list of service providers intent on helping its clients stay federally compliant, the Mequon, Wis., mortgage-shopping website company Mortgage Marvel unveiled its closing-fee accuracy guarantee on Oct. 3. This guarantee offers consumers a payment up to $2,500 if a lender’s quoted closing fees on Mortgage Marvel’s website surpass the fees, by more than $50, actually paid at closing. Whenever a lender, who uses the Mortgage Marvel website to quote rates and fees, updates their closing-fee information, the site gives real-time updates. Mortgage Marvel’s chief operating officer Rick Allen said sometimes closing fees can make up to 6 percent of a home’s purchase price, which can be a substantial amount.