Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization (MISMO), the organization tasked with developing standards for the mortgage finance industry, appointed vice president of operations Jan Davis as its acting president.
Davis has served as the VP of operations and associate vice president of industry standards at MISMO and MBA for more than a decade. She previously held several roles at Fannie Mae, including financial analyst, manager of corporate planning, director of enterprise system operations and ultimately, director of loan operations.
Davis’ appointment in this role follows the departure of former MISMO president Seth Appleton, who will join the U.S. Mortgage Insurers (USMI) as its president in 2023.
Appleton has served in advisory roles for housing initiatives as chief of staff for the U.S. Congressman Blaine Luetkemeyer, assistant secretary for policy development and research with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and principal executive vice president of Ginnie Mae. At MISMO, Appleton aimed to advance the mortgage industry’s digital future.
“Seth has been an exemplary leader of MISMO, successfully guiding the organization in developing new standards that improve efficiency, reduce costs, and accelerate the mortgage industry’s digital transformation,” said Robert (Bob) Broeksmit, president and CEO of MBA, and certified mortgage banker (CMB), in a prepared statement.
MISMO is a not-for-profit wholly owned subsidiary of the Mortgage Bankers Association, launched in April 2020. MBA is on the lookout for a new president of MISMO, and is seeking applications.
MISMO’s role is more of a collaborative one, acting as a central point between lenders, servicers, regulators, insuring and guaranteeing agencies, GSEs, and technology providers.
It creates standards that enable these industry players to speak the same language while exchanging information in the mortgage finance industry. It also allows them to reduce per loan costs, improve margins and speed up the loan process by keeping manual, paper-based processes to a minimum.
The organization’s standards are required by most regulators, housing agencies and the GSEs today.
MISMO created RON standards, aiming to promote “consistency across mortgage industry practices and state regulations to allow the use of audio-visual communication devices to notarize documents in a virtual online environment,” according to HousingWire.
