By Shane Schick
A division of Fidelity National Financial Inc. said on Monday its move to straight-through processing will allow more small Canadian organizations a piece of the mortgage administration business.
Early
next year, Fidelity Information Services will be rolling out a system that combines Profile, its mortgage software service, with point of sale and mortgage-processing applications from Toronto-based Filogix Inc. The result will be a network operated by Fidelity but through which a number of third parties — including credit bureaus, mortgage issuers, lenders and creditor insurance companies can automate key transactions. The company will charge transaction fees for the ASP-style service.
Andrew Beatty, vice-president of Fidelity Information Services’ Canadian banking division, said the project would take advantage of Filogix’s Expert and Express tools, which help streamline mortgage origination and processing.
Beatty described the project as an example of straight-through processing (STP), a process by which financial institutions are trying to minimize or reduce manual intervention of processes. Usually STP projects are deployed in investment management firms trying to expedite securities trading, but Beatty said there were similar benefits in the mortgage administration space. In the trading world, for example, the biggest STP challenge usually occurs in the “”pre-trade”” phase.
“”Origination is really where the pain point is (in mortgage administration), because you’re amassing all the data from all over the place,”” he said. “”This will be a lot faster, because there’s no re-keying of information.””
Right now, Canadian organizations like MCAP Mortgage Corporation use Omiga software from Malborough Stirling to meet their STP needs. Beatty said he has high hopes those kinds of firms will work through Fidelity’s network.
“”The difference with Profile is that it will offer small organizations the ability to manage portfolios after fulfillment,”” he said. “”Now they’ll be able to do the various maintenance transactions, which is really what the banks have mostly been doing for now. There are a lot of them that are interested in that space.””
At an event in Toronto last week that focused on STP, IDC Canada analyst Jamie Sharp said enterprises are looking for opportunities to collaborate on STP projects in order to increase operational efficiencies and reduce costs.
“”Industry hubs are being formed,”” he said. “”There’s a lot of in-house custom stuff being done, and there’s a lack of de facto industry standards.””
Beatty said Fidelity will be able to market Profile’s seamless integration with the Filogix tools, while taking advantage of the vendor’s relationships with mortgage originators and third-party lenders.
Fidelity on Monday also said it had selected Q9 Networks’ managed hosting environment for its mortgage administration service.
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