Industry Briefs Sept. 17, 2021: Covius Acquires Nationwide Title Clearing

Covius Acquires Nationwide Title Clearing Inc.

Covius Holdings Inc., Denver, a provider of technology-enabled platforms to the financial services industry, reached an agreement to acquire Palm Harbor, Fla.-based Nationwide Title Clearing Inc., a national lien release provider.

The transaction is expected to close early in the fourth quarter, subject to customary closing conditions. The terms of the agreement were not disclosed. Upon closing, 670 NTC associates will join Covius, including the company’s senior management.

Evercore acted as Covius’ financial advisor and Willkie Farr & Gallagher as legal advisor in connection with the transaction. Carr, Riggs & Ingram acted as advisor to NTC.

Bayview Selects Tavant as Broker Experience Partner

Tavant, Santa Clara, Calif., announced its broker experience partnership with Bayview. Bayview’s new FinXperience platform features digital lending experience that reduces processing time and the overall cost of loan origination. Partnering with Tavant allows Bayview to rapidly expand its wholesale business over the next two years through Lakeview, its wholesale mortgage provider and subsidiary.

FinXperience brings all parties in the lending process to one collaborative platform, providing a more efficient lending experience. FinXperience is powered by Tavant’s digital lending platform, VΞLOX, and provides real-time data exchange to ensure a more fluid experience to boost productivity and reduce loan cycle times. The platform enables providers like Bayview to expedite their processing and approval times, while also ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements.

Black Knight Launches LoanCatcher Cloud-Based Loan Origination System

Black Knight Inc., Jacksonville, Fla., launched LoanCatcher, a loan origination system designed specifically for the needs of mortgage brokers. Entirely cloud-based, any internet-connected device can access the browser-based system, so that brokers can focus on their business and borrowers.

Built on the foundation of the NexSpring LOS acquired by Black Knight in March, the LoanCatcher LOS features significant enhancements, including integrations with systems and solutions across Black Knight’s origination ecosystem. With LoanCatcher, brokers can use Surefire, Black Knight’s customer relationship management and mortgage marketing engine. This direct integration will help brokers stay in front of clients and prospects using the included content about housing, mortgages and more to improve recapture and retention rates. LoanCatcher will also be tightly integrated with the Black Knight Loansifter PPE, a self-service platform that supports searches across 120 wholesale investors, allowing brokers to stay competitive and execute profitable lending strategies.

Enact Launches Initial Public Offering

Enact Holdings Inc., Raleigh, N.C., commenced an initial public offering of 13,310,400 shares of common stock. All of the shares are being offered by the selling stockholder, Genworth Holdings Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Genworth Financial, Inc., and net proceeds from the offering will go to GHI.

GHI expects to grant the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 1,996,560 shares of Enact’s common stock at the initial public offering price, less the underwriting discount. The shares are expected to trade on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker symbol “ACT.”

Freddie Mac Multifamily Requires Tenant Protections on All Future Manufactured Housing Community Transactions

Freddie Mac Multifamily, McLean, Va., announced all future Manufactured Housing Community transactions will include a series of tenant protections, as defined by the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s Duty to Serve regulation.

The protections, which include renewable lease terms, written notice of rent increases, grace periods for late rental payments and rights governing the sale of a manufactured home at an MHC, are intended to support those who own their home but lease the pad on which it sits.

Freddie Mac will also continue to purchase loans for resident-owned manufactured housing communities where residents manage their community collectively through a cooperative, corporation or other similar legal framework. Given their self-governance structure, these loans are likely to already have meaningful tenant pad lease protections. Freddie Mac launched its MHROC offering in 2019.

RiskScout Partners with Ncontracts

RiskScout, Austin, Texas, partnered with Ncontracts, a provider of integrated risk management and lending compliance platforms for the financial services industry, to complement its compliance products for financial institutions seeking to bank emerging commercial markets while maintaining required compliance.

Ncontracts will offer an enhanced suite of tools for financial institutions designed by RiskScout’s compliance staff with examiner and BSA experience, to ease the burden of streamlining enhanced regulatory obligations that come with banking emerging and under-banked markets. Ncontracts and RiskScout will work to not only help clients with compliance and overhead but to find new markets and revenue streams capable of producing hundreds of millions in deposits, fee revenue, lending and merchant opportunities.

OptiFunder, ICE Mortgage Technology Partner on Warehouse Management

OptiFunder, St. Louis, partnered with ICE Mortgage Technology, Pleasanton, Calif., to make its Warehouse Management System available through Encompass.

The API integration helps Encompass users fund loans by providing real-time, optimized warehouse selections on where to fund each loan to achieve the lowest possible cost of warehouse capital and maximum interest spread. By consolidating warehouse management strategy through a single platform, Encompass users reduce financing costs, streamline complex funding workflow and manage warehouse relationships from a single platform.

OptiFunder’s WMS is built from the mortgage lenders’ perspective with a configurable rules engine supporting more than 50 warehouse lenders. The platform uses AI and machine learning to analyze and factor terms and cycle timelines to select the best warehouse line and automates funding activity, wire confirmations, balance reconciliation, collateral tracking, shipping and paydown activities with Purchase Advice Reconciliation direct from the agencies and key investors.

Sprout Mortgage Deploys OptifiNow Custom CRM for Wholesale, Correspondent Business Channels

OptifiNow, Seal Beach, Calif., deployed a CRM platform for Sprout Mortgage’s wholesale and correspondent business channels. Deployment of the heavily customized OptifiNow instance met an extremely compressed schedule, allowing Sprout Mortgage to minimize disruption to its sales and marketing process during a period of rapid growth.

OptifiNow’s implementation included integration with Sprout’s proprietary pricing engine, 24/7 client marketing portal and integration with Sprout’s LOS. The LOS integration required synchronization of third-party originator company and user data, as well as associated loan production data. As a result, Sprout’s wholesale and correspondent sales teams can view detailed loan information on individual loan files without having to access the LOS. Loan data was also used to drive an automated account classification process that identifies whether accounts are actively submitting loans or need additional attention from sales.

Cahaba Mortgage Launches Brand Advertising through Adwerx

Cahaba Mortgage, Hoover, Ala., launched automated brand advertising for all of their loan officers through Adwerx.

Through the Adwerx platform, branded ads featuring the loan officer’s face and contact details are automatically created and launched across Facebook and Instagram, and premium websites. Firms also have access to personalized streaming TV commercials. These digital brand ads allow loan officers to build personal brand awareness in their local areas, reach home buyers directly, and also stay top-of-mind with their referral networks.