Ellie Mae mortgage technology gains market share

More than 19,000 mortgage origination companies used Ellie Mae's ePass technology to handle transactions for a record 1.4 million unique borrower files in the first quarter 2004, the company reported today.

Dublin, Calif.-based Ellie Mae's ePass Web transaction platform links third-party originators to their wholesale lenders and settlement service providers.

The ePass integration provides lenders with direct, secure Internet connections to online loan submissions, and enables them to connect to mortgage professionals accounting for 90 percent of all loans originated industry-wide. Lenders can receive loans electronically from originators in any format, including Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac file format, PDF and XML. Loans can be transmitted through an auto-import link to the lender's wholesale Website or directly into the lender's processing system.

"We are seeing significant momentum in the lender community," said Richard Roof, SVP of lender Services for Ellie Mae. "Lenders traditionally were challenged with the task of integrating their systems into the infinite variety of software their clients used."

The company cited findings in a recent study of lenders conducted by Mortech, saying that those who use ePass experienced profitability gains of 5 to 9 basis points per loan processed in the wholesale channel. The study also found decreased time between locking/funding loans, compressed funding cycles, improved secondary market pricing and reduced cost of carry.

During the past six months, many top 100 U.S. wholesale and correspondent lenders, including Aegis, Argent, American Home Bank, AmeriUS, Aurora, Cendant, CitiMortgage, HFN, Household, Irwin, Novastar, MILA, SouthStar Funding, Union Federal and Quicken Loans signed contracts or finished integration of the ePass technology. This brings the roster of lenders using ePass to more than 30 percent of the top 100. Early adopters of the technology include Bank of America, Greenpoint, Flagstar, Indy Mac, Impac, New Century and WMC, according to Ellie Mae.

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