Several financial institutions have engaged mortgage service providers to improve the production process. Services range from loan verifications to processing and underwriting.
Recently, independent mortgage banker Guild Mortgage Co. christened its foray into production services by announcing its new financial institution services group.
The Feb. 18 announcement said the group — which will target credit unions, regional banks and community banks — would buy and service loans from smaller institutions.
“Many smaller credit unions and banks struggle with the high cost of having the resources to add staff and be compliant with all the new rules and regulations,” Guild Mortgage Chief Executive Officer Mary Ann McGarry said in the statement. “If they sell their loans to bigger banks, they worry about the bigger bank trying to cross-sell consumers on their products not related to mortgages.”
Guild Mortgage Senior Vice President David Neylan will captain the new group.
Elsewhere, AccountCheck, an automated borrower asset verification tool, received an algorithm and portal redesign upgrades, a recent press release said. Created and offered by FormFree Holdings Corp., the desktop and mobile-capable tool could gain market-wide acceptance thanks to changes in government-sponsored enterprise guidelines that allow for third-party asset verifications, according to a recent media release.
“Automated asset verifications are a vast improvement from the time-consuming, paper-based process of verifying a borrower’s bank statements; plus it is the single most effective means of eliminating asset fraud in the origination process,” FormFree founder and CEO Brent Chandler said. “As a result of these guideline changes, lenders can feel more confident than ever using AccountCheck.”
FormFree says the tool is available to users of Ellie Mae’s Encompass.
Credit Plus Inc. heralded its preferred partner vendor status with the Lenders One mortgage cooperative. Credit Plus will offer a number of third-party verification services, including employment and undisclosed debt verifications as well as credit report merges and scoring.
A partnership was revealed last year between the Federal Savings Bank and West Suburban Bank that will provide FSB’s residential home loan and banking services to all West Bank branches.
Since first using Pavaso’s Digital Close, which has browser-based delivery available on devices ranging from the desktop to the mobile phone, more than half of Mountain America Credit Union’s closings were completed in less than half an hour, according to a jointly released announcement.
“It’s incredible,” said Amy Moser, Mountain America’s vice president of mortgage services. “We had to verify the times with the escrow officers because we didn’t believe it at first. Digital closings are proving that secure delivery of documents prior to closing is not only convenient to our members, but extremely effective.”
On the East Coast, Newport, R.I.-based Embrace Home Loans, said it would now offer services to its two newest lending partners, Rockland Trust and Community Bankers’ Bank. The GSE-direct lender will handle loan processing, underwriting and closing services for Rockland’s originations team, while Embrace’ affinity mortgage solution will offer lending services to Community Bankers’ network of banks, according to separate news statements.
Mount Laurel, N.J.-based Freedom Mortgage Corp. announced its financial institutions partner group surpassed 2014 growth expectations.
“In less than six months, we have signed on twenty-five institutions,” Freedom Mortgage CEO Stanley Middleman said.
Opened last year in March, Freedom’s partner group helps small to mid-size banks and credit unions by offering loan originations fulfillment services. It is led by Freedom Mortgage Senior Vice President Gregory Gentek.
