ICE Mortgage Technology will be sunsetting legacy integrations for its flagship Encompass platform by Oct. 31, 2025, which will modernize the mortgage market even if some vendors and lenders have to go kicking and screaming.
In an email to partners on Tuesday, ICE said that it will be closing down the Encompass SDK (Software Development Kit) on the same day it sunsets the program’s Technology Partner Network, Total Quality Loan Services, PSDK and ePass.
In doing so, ICE is pushing companies to Encompass Partner Network and Encompass Development Partner Connect, which use a more secure, cloud-based open application programming interface (API) structure that launched in 2018.
“We’ve had nearly 400 million calls in the last week on Developer Connect, and that’s representing our traffic from lenders and partners, plus 80 million webhook notifications,” Amy Cross, the director of ICE’s API platform, told HousingWire. “So, we’re seeing steady and significant growth, and it’s the platform we’ve been investing in for ourselves.”
Cross said that from the lender’s perspective, it will give them the opportunity to assess their vendor tech stack and begin troubleshooting. ICE has been doing trend analysis on how lenders use both SDK and API. Its biggest SDK user has reduced its dependency by almost 50%, Cross said, and is steadily paring down the number of plug-ins from more than 100 to less than 60.
Cross noted that it’s “not realistic” to expect all vendors on SDK to meet the deadline of Oct. 31, 2025. ICE is hosting webinars and providing a variety of resources to get lenders and vendors on track to be entirely API-based. Those that do not meet the deadline can still operate SDK through extended access, although they’ll be charged a fee.
Rumors that ICE would sunset SDK have been circulating for years, and ICE said no vendor or lender should be caught off guard by the announcement. The company has been working on this for some time, and timed it so as not to disrupt customers and also improve their efficiency, Cross said.
With a full migration to the API platforms, lenders should benefit from improved speeds, better security and less friction with vendors, said Matthew VanFossen, who runs Absolute Home Mortgage Corp. and Mortgage Automation Technologies (which is not SDK-based).
“It’s a more modernized integration solution, and what it does more than anything is standardize the way over 400 third-party vendors talk to the system,” VanFossen said. “And by moving all the vendors over to this, it really is going to speed up the lender’s platform, so this is a great thing for lenders.”
VanFossen noted that this does present risk for some legacy technology vendors that have not made the investment, meaning they rolled the dice and bet that ICE would not sunset SDK.
“Lenders will be doing an assessment of their tech stack and messaging their vendors to say, ‘Is there any part of your code that’s on SDK? ‘ and ‘Please keep us up to date if it is so we are aware.'” he said.
“They can get their vendors on record — there’s contracts here. Lenders have to know if one of the components that causes their manufacturing process to operate is at any type of risk. Their vendor management policies should cover this.”
Vendors that have already integrated will have an edge, VanFossen argued, as they can devote resources toward fulfilling lender requests, while legacy competitors will need to spend more time and money moving to the API.
