Industry Briefs Oct. 7, 2020
LERETA Acquires Accumatch
LERETA, Pomona, Calif., a provider of national real estate tax and flood services, acquired Accumatch. A Dallas-based property tax intelligence company. Terms were not disclosed.
Accumatch provides escrow tax payment services, non-escrow tax services and a variety of custom delinquency services for loan servicers. The technology architecture and customer centric strategy allows for quick and transformative enhancements for the tax service industry. “LERETA and Accumatch find alignment in their commitment to redefine our customer’s experience through technology modernizations and better solutions to the industry’s oldest challenges,” said John Walsh, CEO of LERETA.
FormFree Enhances Encompass Consumer Connect Integration
FormFree, Athens, Ga., announced enhancements to its integration between AccountChek verification service and Encompass Consumer Connect. Now, borrower data collected by AccountChek in Consumer Connect will automatically map to the Form 1003 (the Universal Residential Loan Application) in the Ellie Mae Digital Lending Platform, saving lenders time and relieving them of the frustration and risk associated with manual data entry.
The upgrade also fully embeds AccountChek within the Consumer Connect user experience for easier borrower navigation and reduced application fall-out.
FirstClose Integrates with Fiserv’s Mortgage Director
FirstClose Inc., Austin, Texas, a provider of technology for banks and credit unions nationwide, partnered with Fiserv, Brookfield, Wis., to provide services to Mortgage Director users. With the integration of the FirstClose ONETM platform into the loan origination system, customers can order instant and bundled reports on flood, valuation, tax and title directly.
The integration also gives Mortgage Director customers the ability to significantly speed up turnaround times and reduce costs, ensuring they stay profitable, while increasing borrower satisfaction. FirstClose has several platforms to help lenders navigate the temporary restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic that keep consumers and agents safe through “no contact” services.
LendEDU: National Student Loan Default Rate Dips to 9.70%
LendEDU, Hoboken, N.J., released its second annual Student Loan Default Rate Report (https://lendedu.com/blog/student-loan-default-rates-by-school-state-2020/), showing default rates at nearly 4,500 colleges.
The report said the national student loan default rate for the 2017 fiscal year fell to 9.70%, a decrease of .40 percentage points from the previous year (10.10%). For-profit institutions had the highest collective student loan default rate (14.70%), followed by public institutions (9.30%), and private institutions (6.70%).
By ethnic school-types, Native American Colleges had the highest student loan default rate (19.73%), followed by HBCUs (16.65%), Ethnically Not Reported Colleges (9.18%), and Hispanic Colleges (8.68%). Massachusetts had the lowest student loan default rate (5.83%), followed by Vermont (6.19%), North Dakota (6.30%), California (6.40%) and Utah (6.60%). Mississippi had the highest student loan default rate (15.19%) and was closely followed by Oklahoma (15.15%), Louisiana (14.91%), New Mexico (13.66%) and West Virginia (12.96%).
Ginnie Mae Announces New Cloud Services Contract
Ginnie Mae, Washington, D.C., announced in coordination with the General Services Administration a 10-year, $140 million Cloud Services contract awarded to team Deloitte (Prime), who partnered with AWS, JHC Technology and Bank NY Mellon.
Ginnie Mae said the new contract will provide an improved path to meeting its requirements, enabling consolidation of legacy platforms, improving availability, and providing more reliable, efficient and higher quality services using cloud native solutions. This contract also provides a more modernized and centrally managed infrastructure platform integrated with cloud services, enhanced security, DevSecOps, monitoring and service delivery across the entire Ginnie Mae application portfolio.
“This modernized cloud platform provides the infrastructure and application development environment to support the deployment of Ginnie Mae’s next generation of technology that is designed to maintain a strong mortgage-backed securities program for the government mortgage market,” said Barbara Cooper-Jones, Senior Vice President, Office of Enterprise Data and Technology Solutions.
