Inman

Mortgage bankers endorse electronic real estate loans

A major mortgage banking association has endorsed the adoption of residential and commercial electronic mortgages.

The board of directors of the Mortgage Bankers Association passed a resolution endorsing electronic mortgages based on a recommendation from the board of directors’ Technology Steering Committee, the MBA said Thursday.

The resolution includes three focus areas:

  • Endorsement of the use of residential and commercial electronic mortgages, based on open standards, to simplify the mortgage process and create other efficiencies that will reduce costs for all market participants, including consumers, over the long-term.
  • MBA will establish electronic mortgage standards and best practices, and continue to financially support the Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization. MISMO is a not-for-profit MBA subsidiary that develops data transfer and file specifications for residential and commercial real estate transactions.
  • MBA will provide advanced educational and training materials regarding electronic mortgages to its members.

“This is a very important step for the MBA,” said John Robbins, president and chief executive officer of American Mortgage Network and chair of the MBA board of directors’ Technology Steering Committee.

Robbins said the move reaffirms MBA’s commitment to building solutions that will benefit the industry and the consumer “as we move forward into the next era of truly paperless mortgages.” 

Currently, MISMO offers a variety of products and services to develop voluntary electronic commerce standards for the mortgage industry. Its eMortgage workgroup builds on the existing MISMO data standards, adding data elements and electronic signature capabilities to create an infrastructure for standardized fully electronic, or paperless, mortgages.

That group also has a commercial side that builds on the existing eMortgage standards to refine them for all phases of the commercial eMortgage value chain.

Additionally, the Secure Identity Services Accreditation Corp., another subsidiary of MBA, sets standards that provide the platform for industry-wide e-commerce secure identifications that allow industry firms to establish various levels of identity for e-commerce transactions.

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