MISMO Releases eMortgage Tool for Lenders

October 25, 2005

ORLANDO, FL -- The Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization (MISMO), a not-for-profit subsidiary of the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA), has released Version 1.0 of the eMortgage Guide to the industry. The MISMO eMortgage Guide is intended to educate the mortgage industry about the business as well as (high-level) technical aspects of eMortgage implementations and their potential benefits. This tool provides the next step of eMortgage efficiencies to the lending community.

"This guide is intended to be an executive-level guide addressing all aspects of eMortgage implementations - key concepts, benefits and ROI, legal background, and industry best practices for the various steps of an eMortgage implementation," said Igor Derensteyn, vice chair of the eMortgage Workgroup and senior vice president of eMortgage Technologies at Countrywide. "Many of the workgroup members who created this guide are experts and have generously contributed their knowledge to this release."

This guide provides an overview of the eMortgage landscape as it exists today, including:

  • Benefits of eMortgages
  • Key industry standards and concepts
  • Underlying legal framework and concepts
  • General guidance for best practices
  • Sources of additional information to get started.
The mortgage industry is slowly but steadily moving forward on eMortgage development and implementation because the resulting paperless processes will provide significant savings of time and money for business and ultimately for consumers. In fact, MBA’s Board of Directors just recently endorsed the adoption, by the industry, of residential and commercial eMortgages. MISMO standards are critical to achieving eMortgage adoption across the industry. During the transition from paper to eMortgages, both individual loans and loan pools may be hybrid, using combinations of paper, imaging, and electronic documents. This guide provides a reference tool to help you move forward toward a standardized eMortgage environment.

This product was developed by the volunteer participants of the MISMO eMortgage Workgroup, which was established in January 2001 to develop standards, specifications and guidelines toward fully electronic (paperless) mortgages that correspond to the Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act (E-SIGN) and the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act (UETA) legislation enacted by the U.S. government in 1999 and 2000. MISMO is dedicated to developing, promoting, and maintaining, through an open process, voluntary electronic commerce standards and best practices for the commercial and residential mortgage industries.

The eMortgage Guide will be posted at www.mismo.org.

Source: MBA


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