Tech Activity Accelerates

“Tomorrow’s leading lenders must grow multiple consumer relationships and fix retention,” TowerGroup researcher Craig Focardi was quoted as telling special guests of a dinner hosted by Tavant Technologies during the conference. “At the same time, lenders must pursue continuous cost reduction strategies by turning to technology for operational efficiencies and integrated lending and IT processes.”

Forcardi said lenders must do their part to pursue successful workouts of mortgage defaults while an integrated, multi-product view will be required to generate successful mortgage automation, according to Tavant. This, as well as well as favorable rate movements, home appreciation, rising income and a healthy overall economy could enable advancements with electronic loans and “the mortgage industry’s first $4 trillion market by 2012.”

Emulex Corp. today announced the general availability of VMPilot, a new management software application that simplifies the creation and migration of Microsoft Virtual Server 2005-based virtual machines attaching to storage area networks.

“Working closely with Microsoft, we have delivered an innovative application to streamline the deployment of data center virtualization,” said an Emulex executive in the statement. “Designed to enable virtual machine migration without reconfiguring storage or copying files, VMPilot delivers time- and cost-savings to our customers.”

American Brokers Conduit said its broker partners have access to its new e-Doc Request — which allows an automated loan process from beginning to end. After loan approval, brokers can now review fees, enter their settlement agent, and choose a closing date online.

With “e-Docs Request, brokers are no longer required to complete a paper fee sheet or fax their closing document request,” said an American Brokers Executive Vice President Lisa Schreiber in a written statement. “The loan information is pre-populated so brokers can submit accurate data electronically, eliminating any confusion and expediting the closing process.”

HBOS Plc., one of the United Kingdom’s leading mortgage and retail financial services providers, uses VMPilot to implement a virtualization strategy across the network, server and storage infrastructure of its distributed client/server environment, according to the announcement.

Kaleidico announced the release of icoSales Enterprise Edition, an enhancement to its icoSales customizable lead acquisition, allocation and management application, which aligns prospects with the sales person whose data shows is likely to understand their needs and finalize their transaction. The new solution was created specifically for mortgage companies, banks, call centers and other organizations with more than 1,000 sales agents and multiple, affiliate offices.

“These organizations want to ensure that the leads they purchase are accurate, qualified and closable and we’re giving them the tools they need to maximize return on their lead buy investments by more actively managing relationships with lead providers,” said Bill Rice, Kaleidico chief executive officer, in the announcement.

Field offices are able to purchase and measure leads from different sources than the home office, better understand how their sales people are performing with specific leads and therefore make more informed lead buying decisions, Kaleidico reported. icoSales EE also gives headquarter offices increased visibility into branch office performance.

As part of an agreement, Systemware Inc. will integrate its content management technology into Fidelity National Information Services Inc.’s banking, card processing and mortgage software, the companies announced today.

While making the transition from paper-based documents to an electronic format is a complex process, Fidelity claims Systemware’s technology is “an exceptional complement to our banking solutions, providing quality content management and ease of integration with our processes and data” that will provide Fidelity’s worldwide banking clients with an “end-to-end, high-value solution for becoming paperless.”

Systemware’s applications are “specifically for banking and financial services companies to improve internal efficiencies, address compliance regulations and reduce operational costs by automating manual, paper-based systems for managing critical customer information,” the companies said. “As the only solution that provides scaleable, multiplatform support to manage all types of banking documents, it enables banks of all sizes to extend the capabilities of existing applications and improve information access and distribution across the enterprise and to customers.”

Meanwhile, Silanis is showcasing its expertise in implementing eMortgage solutions, including online self-service signing, closing table e-signing and eNote management and transfer.

Silanis, the self-proclaimed “largest and most experienced” provider of electronic signature solutions, said it has enhanced its eMortgage solutions offering with support for the Mortgage Electronic Registering System, or the MERS eRegistry, support for MERS eDelivery to facilitate the transfer of eNotes between MERS members, and with enhanced SMART Doc support to further automate mortgage document quality assurance.

salesforce.com will now offer the Finetix Investor Relationship Management to asset managers and wealth managers on its AppExchange — a move that will further expand, from more than two dozen, the selection of on-demand applications available to salesforce.com’s more than 1,200 financial services customers, according to an announcement.

Finetix reportedly developed the management solution specifically for asset and wealth managers to enable improved client acquisition and retention. The solution’s analytics allow for improved management of the business.

“Utilizing FIRM, relationship managers have a centralized platform to understand a client’s investment goals, what products to offer, view client portfolios, understand their total wallet makeup and where their money is invested,” the announcement read. “In addition, robust reporting allows managers to manage and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their line of business, with the ability to report on aspects such as relationship manager Key Performance Indicators, customer segmentation across financial products and other key metrics that drive the business.”

BayLands Federal Credit Union has expanded to all the departments throughout its three branches the implementation of OnBase enterprise content management software suite from Hyland Software Inc., according to a press release today.

OnBase applications include document imaging, workflow, electronic document management, and records management, allowing for financial institutions to manage all digital content. Baylands, originally chartered to serve a local paper mill, sought a community charter and decided to invest on OnBase to integrate information between branches and improve the overall member experience, according to the announcement.

“Using OnBase enterprise-wide, BayLands FCU has improved member service, decreased costs, automated a number of business processes, improved the institution’s disaster recovery initiatives and facilitated compliance through automated document retention,” according to the announcement. “In addition, BayLands FCU plans to leverage these benefits to augment the institution’s overall growth strategy.”

The customers of Credit Insurance Market will now be able to use FirstClose services, which include additional service providers for credit reports, flood zone determinations, AVMs, insured AVMs, desktop appraisals, income verification, document preparation services, closing services, title reports and insurance, lien reports and recording services, according to an announcement.

The “FirstClose platform provides our customers with several service providers and product offerings we have not been able to offer in the past,” Credit Insurance said in the statement. “We’ve offered settlement service packages in the past, but the FirstClose system seems to be the most user-friendly while offering us several niche products and management tools that will be extremely useful to us and our customers.”

National Securities Clearing Corp. processed a record number of transactions worth more than $1.5 trillion on Feb. 27 — a 53 percent jump over the peak volume in 2006, its parent announced today. In each of the following four trading days, transaction volumes exceeded peak volume in the prior year by an average of 34 percent.

The record volume marked the beginning of a “volatile” five-day period which Depository began preparing for in 2006 when it undertook an effort to increase its systems capacity.

National Securities managed the risk by, among other things, ensuring that its broker/dealer and bank members had sufficient funds on deposit to cover intra-day price moves, Depository said.

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Mortgage Technology Bonanza
Mortgage bankers and the vendors that serve them kicked off an annual technology conference this week in Florida. A host of product launches, strategic alliances and outright acquisitions emerged from the event.