Email this pageYour thoughts?
How important is electronic document management?
Quote of the Week
We talked about everything being paperless five years ago. This market is going to push us over the edge.
Sig Anderman, chief executive officer at Ellie Mae, said in discussing the impact market conditions will have on automation.
Tech Term to Note
- metadata
- Data about data.
Metadata describe how and when and by whom a particular set of data was collected, and how the data are formatted. Metadata are essential for understanding information stored in data warehouses and have become increasingly important in XML-based Web applications.
White Papers
Banking to the Power of X
Generation X - those born between 1965 and 1979 - now represent nearly 50 percent of homebuyers. How will you capture their business? Do you have the online presence you need to reach and serve these web-savvy borrowers? This white paper from Dexma answers these questions and offers specific advice lenders can use to evaluate and improve their mortgage websites.
Read more
The Magazine
Interested in going electronic? eLynx's Sharon Matthews outlines one approach to help lenders get there. Also in the issue hot topics like how's the best way to choose a vendor partner that will last and how's the best way to look at stand-alone vs. embedded pricing technologies are fleshed out. Lastly, the magazine is proud to announce our Top 25 Tech-Savvy Lenders. See who made it on the list and why. Featured StoryPreparing For The FutureBy Karl F.W. Young, StoneWater Mortgage Corp. 
StoneWater Mortgage Corp. entered the mortgage arena recently as one of the first mortgage bankers of national scope to emerge since the secondary market launched the industry into a tailspin nearly 12 months ago. Many of the key individuals at StoneWater were with the former First Magnus Financial Corp. that was abruptly sidelined by the near collapse of the secondary mortgage market last August. During the preceding decade, however, First Magnus had grown to become the largest privately held mortgage company in the U.S. and a top 15 lender. We entered the mortgage industry in 1996 [as First Magnus] with only 12 employees. We were relatively young and had the advantage of entering the market at what was essentially the beginning of the technological evolution of the mortgage industry. We knew early on that technology was going to emerge very rapidly throughout the industry and we set out to turn that into an advantage. We had the benefit of being a startup with no legacy system issues and made an early commitment to build our own platform with an in-house software development staff. We also made the commitment to leverage the benefits of the Internet by building an entirely Web-based mortgage banking platform to create efficiencies within our operations rather than using it to drive traffic as many were attempting to do at that time. As our footprint and our volume grew and new functionality began to emerge in the marketplace, our staff of business analysts and software developers also grew in order to support our growth and our platform. The team also grew into what we believe to be some of the sharpest analysts and developers in the mortgage space. |
Free NewsletterSign up for our free weekly email newsletter:Tech Niches BlogWho Needs Paper, Not Flagstar I had the good fortune of being invited to Flagstar Bank’s corporate headquarters to talk with their staff and tour the facilities. For someone who talks about the benefits of paperless processing and embracing full e-mortgages, I was a kid in a candy store. The industry doesn’t need paper. It’s inefficient, environmentally unsound and opens the lender up to error. Flagstar doesn’t just get that message, they have acted on it. Executive SpotlightAutomating Short SalesInterview with Rich Rollins, REO Sentinel and National Quick Sale 
With foreclosures on the rise, lenders are looking for options to keep the borrower in the home. One option is a short sale. However, today the short sale process is very labor intensive and not many are closed as a result. Rich Rollins, chief executive officer of REO Sentinel and National Quick Sale, talked to our editor Tony Garritano about how to automate the short sale process. Tech Innovation BlogPBV’s — Reap What You Sow A person seeking advice this week asked me, “Can innovation and innovative operations — processes, products, data, and technologies — be achieved and sustained using a copycat business model?” This approach continues to gain widespread appeal from would be entrepreneurs seeking to lift consumer and operating principles from the likes of Google, social networks, online auctions and of course prior employers. However, if history has taught us anything within the FSI and mortgage industries it is that those who follow the crowd in search of a quick profit and outside investment will reach an ugly demise — like lemmings rushing into the sea. |
||
Video Newscast
|
|||
Daily Mortgage Technology NewsInterthinx Helps Lenders Automate FHA RiskAugust 26, 2008 Interthinx, Agoura Hills, Calif., has launched specific FHA Requirement Solutions to help lenders ensure compliant Federal Housing Administration lending programs. Click here for more.ComplianceEase Automates Regulatory ReviewAugust 21, 2008 Minneapolis-based ComplianceEase has released RegulatorConnect and RegulatorDirect, which the company says will enable state-regulated mortgage lenders and banking institutions to plug into an automated regulatory examination process. Click here for more.Overstock.com Adds Online RE AuctionsAugust 20, 2008 Overstock.com Inc., Salt Lake City, has announced that its website now offers access to online real estate auctions. Click here for more.FirstAm Unit Offers E-Docs on Int'l MortgagesAugust 19, 2008 First American Loan Production Solutions has begun offering electronic document packages that allow lenders to originate and close mortgages on U.S. purchases of investment properties and second homes in Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, and Mexico. Click here for more.CSC Unveils Tool to Expedite Servicer AidAugust 14, 2008 CSC, a provider of technology based in Falls Church, Va., has announced the introduction of Borrower Inquiry, a tool designed to enable homeowners facing foreclosure to track the status of their requests for help from their mortgage servicers. Click here for more. |
|||
2008 Top 25 Tech-Savvy Lenders
What does it take to be named one of our Top 25 Tech-Savvy Lenders? We look first to the stats we collect for online overall and retail lending. Certainly, our list had to change this year due to the market. Ongoing restructuring of the industry made us take a wait-and-see on some that we know are making unpublicized strides with technology that we hope to honor in the future. Read more |
2008 Top Providers
This list has gone through several changes over the past few years. For example, we originally honored 100 providers, but have recently sliced that down to just 50 in order to reflect the deep industry consolidation. As lenders look increasingly for one end-to-end solution, technology providers have merged or acquired niche players to offer a variety of services or technology applications under one company name. Read more |
||
