Black Knight recently launched a web portal that enables clients, third-party providers and their developers to access the company’s application programming interfaces (APIs) across the mortgage life cycle.
Dubbed the Developer Portal, clients can use Black Knight’s APIs to rapidly embed additional functionality within their applications, the company said in an announcement about the rollout.
The first phase of the portal will include APIs specific to Black Knight’s servicing technologies and will expand to include offerings in the lending and secondary markets space.
“By providing easy, self-service access to the API catalog and all necessary tooling, the Developer Portal allows clients to innovate further by rapidly integrating their applications and data to help achieve desired business outcomes,” the firm said in a release.
Black Knight has been rolling out new features for servicers to increase outreach to homeowners, including the integration of a digital servicing platform Servicing Digital and its Surefire CRM — a mortgage-specific marketing automation and content solution. Servicing Digital, offered as an app or web design, enables customers to access their loan- and home-related information.
The integration can help servicers increase long-term retention, said Joe Nackashi, Black Knight’s CEO.
Its new tools also allow lenders to cut costs in a higher-rate environment. For instance, the “fee cures suite” program, which rolled out in the summer, enables lenders to compare loan estimates and closing disclosures from closed loans to minimize expenses.
Black Knight is preparing to be acquired by ICE, the other mortgage tech giant in the data space. In May, ICE announced that it entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Black Knight for $13.1 billion, which valued the company at $85 per share.
Trade groups and investors have been voicing antitrust concerns following the announcement. If the deal goes through, the two companies would control roughly two-thirds of the software that is currently used to originate and service the country’s mortgages.
Most recently, House Financial Services Committee Chairwoman Maxine Waters sent a letter to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which stated that the consolidations would result in higher loan pricing for consumers and decreased competition.
“A combined ICE and Black Knight could harm small lenders that rely on vendors for their technology needs by significantly disincentivizing responsible innovation and inhibiting vendor competition given the dominant market share of ICE,” Waters wrote to FTC Commissioner Lina Kahn in December.
ICE claims the merger will modernize the mortgage servicing platform and the merger “will afford significant benefits to U.S. homeowners and industry stakeholders.”
Black Knight’s stack will be upgraded, and in return, reduce cost per mortgage origination and create new products through the merger, said ICE CEO and Chairman Jeffrey Sprecher in its third quarter earnings call to address concerns about antitrust issues.
