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From new launches and partnerships to rewards and new tools, get the latest buzz on the industry here.
Arch Mortgage Insurance Company (Arch MI), a provider of private mortgage insurance (MI) and a wholly owned subsidiary of Arch Capital Group Ltd., announced the release of an update to their premium pricing tool, RateStar.
This next generation of Arch MI’s RateStar user portal delivers a streamlined customer experience with express quotes and options to fully customize quotes. RateStar launched 10 years ago as a dynamic tool that could evaluate individual loan risk precisely. RateStar is also the only MI pricing tool that currently has an MI buydown feature. RateStar Buydown allows loan officers to customize a unique MI premium payment for each borrower, leveraging all lender and seller credits.
“RateStar continues to evolve as we apply our decade of expertise and customer feedback,” said Michael Schmeiser, Arch MI’s President and CEO. “RateStar transformed the way lenders selected coverage, delivering our most competitive rates for each loan, and RateStar Buydown made it possible for them to tailor MI premiums according to individual borrower circumstances.”
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Charlotte, North Carolina-headquartered RoundPoint Mortgage Servicing Corporation(RoundPoint) announced that it has earned the Servicer Total Achievement and Rewards (STAR) Program performer recognition from Fannie Mae. This recognition is given by Fannie Mae to top performing servicers. RoundPoint said that it earned the STAR recognition for two categories: General Servicing and Solution Delivery, based on specific metrics set by Fannie Mae.
“We are honored to receive Fannie Mae’s STAR recognition because it acknowledges the tremendous effort put forth by our customer service team to consistently deliver exceptional support,” said Kevin Brungardt, CEO of RoundPoint. “The recognition aligns with our corporate values, our focus on service excellence, and being ‘all things home’ to our customers.”
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Blend recently announced the launch of its deposit account offering. The new product enables Blend customers to offer a digital account opening experience to consumers across desktop and mobile.
“By making deposit account opening easier, Blend is enabling banks and credit unions, no matter their size, to deepen consumer relationships and stay competitive in a crowded market,” said Blend Head of Product Olivia Teich. “This is an important step in our journey to build a single platform for lenders to provide exceptional customer experiences across their products.”
Blend states that Mountain America Credit Union was able to fully roll out Blend’s deposit account product in one month, with all online account opening traffic now flowing through Blend’s platform. Already, the company has seen 53% of applications come through mobile, a channel not previously offered for deposits. Additionally, Blend notes that the time it takes to apply for and open an account has decreased by 46%.
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Closepin announced the launch of a tool which assists mortgage lenders in their efforts to conduct fully-digital closings. Closepin’s core business offers lenders automated compliance validation and wire instruction verification for mortgage-closing agents. With this new feature, Closepin empowers lenders to search for eClosing-enabled title agents.
“Lenders are looking for ways to offer digital closings to those customers that want them, but to do so requires an entire ecosystem of partners. One of the biggest challenges has been finding closing agent partners who are equipped to manage these transactions. Closepin now solves that for lenders,” said Ryan Peterson, EVP of Westcor Global, the creators of Closepin.
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Vendorly, a vendor oversight platform for financial institutions, recently announced an agreement with BitSight. Vendorly is now an authorized reseller of BitSight Security Ratings.
In a release, Vendorly stated that "global organizations are increasingly facing significant cyber risk management challenges. To help proactively mitigate risk, organizations need automated tools to measure and monitor the security performance of vendors."
“For many organizations, cybersecurity and threat assessments continue to be an esoteric concept,” said Jim Vaca, SVP, Vendorly. “Organizations are often not capable of keeping up with the rapidly changing threat environment, let alone understanding the actual security performance of their critical vendors. BitSight has created objective metrics and tools that help identify cyber risk in a way that is understandable for organizations.”
