Inman

Fraud-fighting technology offers help to mortgage lenders

As reports of mortgage fraud, identity theft and other financial crimes are on the rise, new tools are coming on the market to help lenders fight and manage borrower fraud.

Sacramento, Calif.-based CoreLogic, a provider of mortgage risk assessment and fraud prevention technology, has developed a tool to help lenders manage borrower fraud, the company said today. The tool, IdentityPro, assesses a borrower’s likelihood to commit the type of mortgage fraud most likely to cause financial loss by using state-of-the-art behavioral analysis that reveals suspicious patterns.

“It’s a more robust engine than other products out in the marketplace right now, because it goes beyond the basics of Social Security number verification and identifying misrepresentation,” said Felice Kesselring, director of product development for CoreLogic. “It diagnoses a borrower’s buying and living patterns, looking for the type of activity that can be correlated to the risk associated specifically with fraud for profit.”

IdentityPro works by modeling borrower transactions and other relevant data to more precisely determine borrower risk. In addition, the technology includes compliance and misrepresentation capabilities to spot identity theft, straw borrowers and owner-occupancy misrepresentation. It aims to: promote proactive risk management practices, identify and then minimize borrower-related loan risk, stop fraudulent loans before they are funded, accelerate decision making and lower operating costs.

“We can detect patterns that are correlated to flipping activities and higher risk loans giving the mortgage lender a broader base of information about an individual loan or a loan pool. This information enables them to adjust their lending practices accordingly,” said Kesselring.

The reports provide alerts for questionable activity including transient behavior, owner occupancy, property value change and Social Security number activity. These alerts and flags act as guideposts to speed review and decision-making, the company said.