MISMO Approves New Remote Online Notarization Standards
MISMO®, the mortgage industry’s standards organization, announced release of its Remote Online Notarization standards, which include an update to draft standards issued earlier this year.
The RON standards allow use of audio-visual communication devices to notarize documents in a virtual online environment.
MISMO’s RON standards were updated to include language to preclude storage of personally identifiable information. With this revision, the RON standards are being released for a public comment period beginning July 25 through August 12. Should no substantive comments be received during this comment period, the standards will be moved to Candidate Recommendation status–meaning the RON standards have been thoroughly reviewed by a wide range of organizations and industry participants and are ready for broad use across the entire residential mortgage industry.
“With states across the country enacting remote online notarization laws, MISMO’s standards will support greater consistency as the volume of remote online notarial transactions increases,” said Eddie Oddo, Vice President of Corporate Business Solutions with First American Title Insurance Co., Santa Ana, Calif., and co-chair of the MISMO Remote Online Notarization Workgroup. “We’re excited about this next stage in the standards process and look forward to seeing lenders, title companies, software vendors, and notaries leverage RON standards to offer borrowers a more secure and efficient closing process.”
MISMO’s RON standards were created to promote consistency across mortgage industry practices and state regulations. In the interest of furthering adoption of RON and to encourage consistency in related state regulation, MISMO will make its standards available for free to the public and will not require a license fee to use them.
The standards include credential analysis, borrower identification, capturing and maintaining a recording of the notary process electronically, audio and video requirements, record storage and audit trails.
MISMO’s RON standards support model legislation that was developed by the Mortgage Bankers Association and the American Land Title Association, which multiple U.S. states are now using to enact RON laws in their jurisdictions. Furthermore, some states that enacted RON legislation have already used draft versions of the MISMO RON standards to implement their state laws.
Mortgage industry participants are encouraged to review and comment on the revisions to the MISMO RON standards. The revised MISMO RON standards are available on www.mismo.org. An additional version of the updated RON standards is available with revised text highlighted in yellow. For more information about MISMO’s RON standards or to download them, visit: http://www.mismo.org/standards-and-resources/emortgage-specifications/remote-online-notarization-standards.
Industry participants who have comments or questions about the new RON standards may contact MISMO at info@mismo.org.
Release and use of MISMO standards, including the MISMO RON standards, are governed by the MISMO Intellectual Property Rights Policy. For more information on the policy, click http://www.mismo.org/x242632.
About MISMO
The Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization (MISMO) was created in 1999 to develop a common data language for the mortgage finance industry. Today, MISMO standards are accepted and deployed by every type of entity involved in creating mortgages, and they are required by most regulators, housing agencies and GSEs that govern the exchange of information. Use of MISMO’s standards has been found to lower per loan costs, improve margins, reduce errors and speed up the loan process by reducing manual, paper-based processes. MISMO is managed by the Mortgage Bankers Association. For more information, visit www.mismo.org.
