Tech Roundup: Risk Management Heads to Community Banks

Minneapolis-based Wolters Kluwer Financial Services, a leading provider of risk management solutions for financial organizations, announced last week it had entered into a partnership with the Independent Community Bankers of America. The partnership will provide the ICBA with Wolters Kluwer’s suite of mortgage lending solutions, including its document services platform, a secure electronic document exchange tool, a government lending services platform and StateLink, a Web-based compliance tool that provides up-to-date regulatory information. “With far less competition than a year ago, and increased demand from customers, many community banks are well positioned to pursue what will likely be the most aggressive expansion of their mortgage business in more than a decade,” said Dan Clancy, ICBA senior vice president of services. “As they do so, however, these banks must keep in mind the critical compliance and operational risks that accompany such growth. By teaming up with Wolters Kluwer Financial Services, we’re giving our members the ability to thoroughly manage this risk while building more profitable home loan portfolios.” For more information, visit www.wolterskluwerfs.com. LPS Recognized for SoftPro Division: Lender Processing Services, Inc. (LPS), a leading provider of integrated technology and services to the mortgage industry, on Monday announced that its Raleigh, N.C.-based SoftPro division won a Stevie Award for Best Overall Company of the Year for 2008. SoftPro is a leading provider of closing and title software solutions with more than 12,000 customer sites and more than 60,000 users nationwide. “We’re honored to be selected as Best Overall Company at the Stevie Awards for Women in Business,” said Joyce Weiland, SoftPro’s chief operating officer. For more information, visit www.softprocorp.com. Mortgage banker to add scalable lending solution platform: Denver-based Mortgage Cadence Inc., a provider of enterprise lending solutions (ELS) for the financial services industry, last week announced the roll out of Mortgage Cadence Orchestrator with the full-service mortgage banker Standard Pacific Mortgage, a wholly owned subsidiary of home builder Standard Pacific Corp. The platform will provide Pacific Mortgage with lending expertise, data-driven workflow and scalability. “We choose Mortgage Cadence to be our technology partner due to their robust ELS with automation capabilities and the ability at which Mortgage Cadence Orchestrator could be modified based on our specific needs,” stated Richard Ambrose, president of Standard Pacific Mortgage Inc. For more information, visit www.mortgagecadence.com. Assistance on the way to Guaranteed family: White Plains, N.Y.-based Guaranteed Home Mortgage Company Inc. last week introduced a new “survival package” for struggling mortgage companies. The package consists of assistance in compliance, marketing, accounting and processing, and the use of proprietary software systems, under the Guaranteed umbrella. A company must join Guaranteed as a branch office to receive the assistance, provided they have sufficient mortgage banking, brokerage and management experience. Guaranteed then lets the new branch focus on its core competency of generating business revenue while it handles licensing issues, regulatory reports and other auxiliary functions. “Our comprehensive support structure emphasizes mortgage banking fundamentals and serves as a major component of our new survival package. We also help our branches leverage our national operation to achieve lower-cost financing for their clients while maximizing their own returns on each transaction,” said president David Wind. For more information, visit www.ghmc.com. Online real estate information encyclopedia grows: Freedom Interactive, an Internet division of Freedom Communications, last week announced a partnership with Gabriels Technology Solutions and Cyberhomes, owned by Fidelity National Financial, to launch new real estate vertical sites across its portfolio. The new real estate vertical provides localized, in-depth information about specific neighborhoods, including neighborhood population by age, household income levels, local school information, travel time to work, and real estate taxes. In addition, the new real estate vertical includes all the information prospective home buyers will need in order to make an informed decision about a home purchase, including mortgage calculators, interest rates trends, local real estate specialists and information about home finance, moving, buying and selling. “The new real estate vertical sites provide our online audiences with improved access to local listings, home valuation tools, and community-specific real estate resources,” said Doug Bennett, president of Freedom Interactive. “Adding this important new real estate vertical to each of our sites brings more functionality and convenience to millions of users looking for localized real estate information.” For more information, visit www.freedominteractive.com. Write to Diana Golobay at [email protected]. Editor’s note: Tech Roundup runs every Monday, and offers a look into the various technology that makes the entire mortgage market work — whether origination or default, through to secondary market operations. If you’ve got a tech bit that we should know about, email the reporter above. Disclosure: The author held no relevant investment positions when this story was published. Indirect holdings may exist via mutual fund investments. HW reporters and writers follow a strict disclosure policy, the first in the mortgage trade.