Accenture Acquires Mortgage Cadence, Expands Industry Capability

In New York, ""Accenture"":http://www.accenture.com/us-en/Pages/index.aspx announced its acquisition of ""Mortgage Cadence"":http://www.mortgagecadence.com/, a leading provider of loan origination software and e-document management services.

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The acquisition adds an advanced technology platform to strengthen Accenture's mortgage business-process outsourcing (BPO) services and enables the company to provide software to mortgage lenders looking for a way to increase efficiencies and reduce costs.

According to Terry Moore, global managing director of Accenture Credit Services, the timing of the acquisition was important given the regulatory challenges facing the market and the end of the refinance boom--which he believes ""masked inefficiencies in the mortgage process.""

Mortgage Cadence stood out from other technology providers because of its underwriting technology, which boosts Accenture's efficiency by 30-40 percent without sacrificing quality.

""The U.S. mortgage industry is entering an era in which efficiency, speed and the customer experience will be more crucial than ever in determining winners and losers,"" Moore said. ""By adding this key mortgage processing asset, we will enhance our end-to-end credit services capabilities and bring a new generation of mortgage processing services to the industry. This offers lenders improved speed-to-market, cycle-time, costs, and productivity.""

Under the agreement--subject to customary closing requirements--Mortgage Cadence will become a part of Accenture, and its software will be incorporated into Accenture Credit Services, which will use the technology as a core loan origination platform to process mortgages on behalf of its outsourcing clients. Accenture will also provide the software to lenders on a standalone basis as part of its banking software portfolio.

""As the US mortgage industry evolves, leading-edge technology applications for processing loans have taken on tremendous importance in terms of competitive advantage, growth and profitability,"" said Jim Astorian, managing director for Accenture Software. ""This acquisition reflects our continued focus on investing in and developing core software technologies that will help our financial services industry clients succeed in an evolving marketplace.""

Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.