Technology

Looking Glass Group, a provider of professional consulting services to the financial services industry, has added three mortgage industry veterans to its team: Rebecca Walzak, Melissa Hill, and Janet Peters. Walzak has been named president of the mortgage consulting firm, and Hill and Peters are senior partners. Each brings over 25 years of front line mortgage experience to Looking Glass Group, expanding the firm's ability to support clients in the areas of risk management, quality control, and audits.

CoreLogic and Amherst Holdings, LLC, have partnered to release the Agency Prepayment Analyzer, an online investment analysis tool. The analyzer intertwines CoreLogic's data with Amherst's analytics and forecasting to deliver prepayment risk trends for agency mortgage-backed securities. Designed for fixed-income investors, Agency Prepayment Analyzer tracks the rates at which residential mortgage loans prepay, either voluntarily or involuntarily due to refinancing, defaults, or sales - instances in which the GSEs require buybacks.

ServiceLink announced Tuesday that Greg Whitworth has joined the company as EVP of servicing solutions. Whitworth will help develop ServiceLink's overall default and servicing business strategy, and will focus on building a consulting practice. ServiceLink is a Fidelity National Financial company and currently provides its solutions to 15 of the top 20 mortgage lenders and servicers. ServiceLink's flagship workflow and content management technology, Commerce Velocity, will be a key area of focus for Whitworth.

Sabal Financial Group, L.P., the financial services management firm formerly known as Milestone Asset Resolution Company, said this week that it recently acquired a $153 million portfolio from a major Midwest retail bank. The portfolio includes more than 100 loans, both performing and nonperforming, and is primarily secured by retail, office, and industrial properties, and land. Sabal will provide loan servicing and asset management for the portfolio.

FICO announced this week that it has inked deals with four of the country's top 10 mortgage servicers to provide them with its predictive analytics technology to identify borrowers who pose the greatest risk of strategic default. Studies conducted by the University of Chicago Booth School of Business indicate that roughly 35 percent of mortgage defaults are strategic, and FICO estimates this makes strategic defaults more than a $20 billion problem annually.

Florida-based eMASON, Inc., developer of the Clarifire business process automation software for the financial services industry, has unveiled the Clarifire Community. The Clarifire Community portal allows borrowers, servicers, investors, title agents, real estate agents, regulators, and other mortgage industry players to come together via a single platform to synchronize activities relating to mortgage loans, while ensuring compliance with federal regulations such as single point of contact and borrower communications.

The United States Supreme Court has denied a writ of certiorari in a case involving MERS, refusing to reconsider a California court ruling, which upheld MERS' right to initiate foreclosures. The Supreme Court of the State of California previously refused to review the initial decision, leading San Diego foreclosure attorney Ehud Gersten to elevate his client's case to the U.S. Supreme Court. ""It is disappointing,"" Gersten told DSNews.com, adding that a Supreme Court ruling would have ended state-by-state discrepancies in MERS cases.

Code Violation Services (CVS) announced Tuesday a new technology platform built to address obstacles presented when homeowner association (HOA) obligations are not satisfied on a property. The new HOA Plus technology will help investors, lenders, servicers, asset managers, and title and closing companies avoid fines and delays due to unmet HOA requirements. While CVS is not the first to offer an HOA database, its database is unique in that it helps match HOAs with specific addresses.

Wingspan Portfolio Advisors LLC, a special servicer based in Dallas, Texas, is launching an affiliate technology company to help servicers implement the single-point-of-contact requirement that is part of the GSEs' Servicing Alignment Initiative. The innovative technology that earned Wingspan a ""Servicer of the Year"" award will soon be available across the industry.

Equator, a California-based provider of default servicing technology, has supported 1 million short sales through its EQ Platform since its launch in November 2009, according to the company's third quarter report. ""Short sales continue to be a viable option to foreclosure,"" Chris Saitta, CEO of Equator said. In addition, Equator's Loan Segmentation Module has processed more than 500,000 loans this year. Short sales continue to be a viable option to foreclosure, Chris Saitta, CEO of Equator said.