President's Letter
Welcome to Q2 of 2010!
I hate to kick things off on a negative note, but I’m getting a little nervous about the proposed changes proposed as part of the “Restoring American Financial Stability Act of 2010.”
There is a section of the bill that addresses securitization that includes language to the effect that entities that sell mortgage-backed securities will need to retain 5% of the credit risk on reserve in case something goes bad. On page 860 in section E(ii) it empowers regulators to enforce that the originator of the loan (that would be you) participate in that 5%. Worse, it is silent on a time period for how long you would need to hold onto that reserve.
Hopefully, I'm just overreacting, but even if it's only the entity that is offering up the MBS that is required to retain the reserve, it's obvious that mortgage rates would become drastically more expensive. The effect would be additional to FED interest rate hikes which already loom ahead.
On Monday, April 12, David Lykken had Glen Corso on his webcasted radio program ("Lykken on Lending") who talked in detail about this act and suggested some specific ways YOU can help fix this bill before it becomes a law. I strongly encourage you to listen to the podcast of that show (available here).
Whew… glad to get that off my chest!
On a lighter note, from where we sit it seems like our industry is starting to pick up again after a horrible first quarter. We’ve spoken to hundreds and hundreds of current and future clients, and pretty much everyone talked about how hard the transition to the new regulatory requirements were (because they are so confusing), and how significantly their volume dropped off in January.
Today we are hearing better news. Most lenders have adapted to the regulatory changes, and application volume has picked back up. Yay!
We engaged five new clients last month (welcome!) – three of which are community banks. We also are happy to have back a former lender that strayed away for a bit but has returned back home. And we want to wish good luck to a team that splintered off of one of our customers to go it on their own.
Finally, I want to put a quick plug for our upcoming Client Conference (details are below). We received very positive feedback from all of the attendees last year. We are excited to both share our upcoming road map with you, as well as listen to your input to help us prioritize our plans.
I heard this quote the other day, and it really resonated with me… so I thought I’d share:
“Worry about being better; bigger will take care of itself.” Gary Comer (1929–2006, founder of Lands' End)
Good luck this quarter with your business!
Cheers.
Rob
new PARTNERSHIPS
DMD is please to announce new strategic partnerships with the following:
CCMC provides sophisticated middleware solutions for workflow management systems, system-to-system data transfer, browser-base applications constructed with web services and loan origination to decision support systems.
Comergence provides a supplemental or comprehensive alternative to a lender's in-house borker approval desk. They are the industry's only end-to-end service solution for third party originator due dilligence, management and compliance surveillance.
LoanSifter's "best of breed" solutions include an intuitive point-of-sale loan eligibility and pricing engine, lock desk and rate sheet generator sure to satisfy the most demanding secondary manager.
Document Express and ComplianceEase are now available through the Vendor Services Platform. If you are interested in learning more about any of these new (or existing) partners, please contact Michelle Robinson at mrobinson@dmdinc.com.
client conference
Each year, DMD gathers together with our clients from around the country to share ideas on how to get the most impact from our solutions in your business, and to share our product roadmap so that you know what is coming.
Feedback from attendees in the past has always been very positive – otherwise we wouldn’t hold them anymore!
Register Now!
June 9-11
ARIA Hotel, Las Vegas
Keep your eye out for agenda and registration details – coming soon.
Product tips
Are you making full use of the Print Client in DataTrac EDM?
Uploading and faxing are often the first options that come to mind when imaging loan documents. However, in many cases use of the print client is the most efficient means of image transfer.
The print client is simply another print driver in your printer selection. If you already have the document in an electronic format, or can print the doc from an application, printing to DataTrac EDM via the print driver eliminates the need for "browsing" through folders to locate the document (as with the upload method); and of course there are no fax cover sheets (as with the fax method).
The process will also allow the user to index / classify the documents as each is printed. You can even split and merge Docs within the print client.
DataTrac provides several features to help you control data relative to the county of the subject property.
In the "Counties" support file you may establish county-level HUD/GSE loan amount restrictions. The most recent government-published data files may be updated with a simple push of a button. Additionally, your organization may override these values to accommodate variances not reflected in the published data file.
This approach enables you to determine when it is appropriate to update the tables, as well as the flexibility to adapt them to your organization’s needs. Assure that your procedures provide for completion of this task on a periodic basis.
County, State and MSA codes for HMDA reporting may be populated with the "Lookup" button on the UND – Property screen. Geocoding is also available through Vendor Services (VSP) as part of the Compliance Eagle service.
If you are using the Compliance Eagle services, the "Lookup" button function may be an unnecessary procedure. Reference the DataTrac System Admin Guide, Chapter 5 for instructions.
DataTrac Originator users have raved about our implementation of the GFE for 2010.
With such significant changes, we thought it would be helpful to share some common questions we receive on completing the GFE:
Q: If a lender does not offer a rate lock, how should Line 1 in the "Important Dates" section of the GFE be completed?
A: In Line 1, the loan originator must state the date, and if applicable, time until which the interest rate for the GFE will be available. If the rate is not available for any period of time, then Line 1 should state "Not Available" or "NA".
Q: If a lender does not offer a rate lock, how should Lines 3 and 4 in the "Important dates" section on the GFE be completed?
A: If the lender does not offer a rate lock, then Lines 3 & 4 of the "Important dates" section should state "Not Available" or "NA".
For more information on this subject, reference the InTrac User Guide, page 93.
The new ExTrac products are now available.
- Texas Captial
- Wire Exchange
- DMI
- Comerica
If you are interested in these ExTracs, please contact your Account Manager.
Trade Show schedule
We have a very exciting trade show schedule planned for the year. We hope to see you along the way!
Please visit our website for a complete listing of all the shows we will be attending.
http://dmdinc.com/In-The-Know/Events.aspx
Reaching Support
Contacting our Support team without using your phone is simple.
1. Just log into your account at https://support.dmdinc.com
2. Click on “Create New Incident” in the left-hand navigation window
3. Fill out the form with your question
4. Click SUBMIT (at the bottom of the screen)
This will open a support ticket that you can then track as we make progress on getting your challenge resolved.
Or if you are in a hurry or want to include screen shots you can email us at support@dmdinc.com.
If you have an urgent matter, give us a call. Otherwise, using our support site or email can save time.