[April 07, 2004] ePASS Market Penetration at Record Levels in First Quarter 2004; Ellie Mae Connectivity Tool Used for 40% of TPO Originated Loans DUBLIN, Calif. --(Business Wire)-- April 7, 2004 -- Ellie Mae Inc., whose ePASS(R) Web transaction platform links the majority of third-party originators (TPOs) to their wholesale lenders and settlement service providers, today announced that during the first quarter of 2004, ePASS technology was used by over 19,000 mortgage origination companies to handle transactions for a record 1.4 million unique borrower files. 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 technology to over 30 percent of the top 100. Of this group, early adopters of the technology include Bank of America, Greenpoint, Flagstar, Indy Mac, Impac, New Century and WMC. The ePASS integration provides lenders with direct, secure Internet connections to online loan submissions, and gives them the ability to simply connect to mortgage professionals accounting for 90 percent of all loans originated industry-wide. With ePASS technology, lenders can receive loans electronically from originators in any format -- 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, senior vice president, 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. Now, by leveraging our ePASS technology, lenders can access the entire mortgage originator universe without having to program and maintain separate interfaces for each user. Additionally, the results of a recent Mortech LLC study support significant operational, marketing and profitability gains for our lenders. It's a win-win-win proposition for lenders, mortgage originators, and Ellie Mae. The key findings from the Mortech, LLC study of lenders using ePASS technology supports that the operational and profitability gains for lenders can indeed be significant -- an increase in profitability of 5 to 9 basis points per loan processed in the wholesale loan channel. The study cites decreased elapsed time between locking/funding loans, compressed funding cycles, improved secondary market pricing and reduced cost of carry. Lenders also reported decreased pipeline fall-out. Additionally, operational improvements in fewer errors and less data re-keying were observed. For mortgage originators, this connectivity enables seamless and simple uploading of loan files directly from their desktop software into the lenders' systems with just two mouse clicks, reducing redundant data entry and complicated file transfers, while at the same time greatly increasing the use of the lender's advanced functionality including pre-qualification, eligibility checking, automated underwriting, loan registration, rate locking, and more. Originators can access ePASS through all major loan origination software including Encompass, Genesis, Contour, Calyx(R) Point(R) and Byte(TM). Adoption of ePASS connectivity by third party originators is a testament to the dramatic increases it provides to their productivity, noted Sig Anderman, CEO for Ellie Mae. Mortgage originators tell us time and time again they need a uniform interface to access all of their lenders and settlement service providers. ePASS gives them exactly that, and they are 'voting' with mouse clicks. For more information about the Mortech LLC study or ePASS technology for lenders, contact Richard Roof, senior vice president, Lender Services, at 925-227-7066 or email [email protected]. About Ellie Mae Dublin, California-based Ellie Mae, Inc., winner of the 2003 Inman Innovator Award for Most Innovative Company in the mortgage and real estate industries, and named one of the top 50 Companies to Work For in the San Francisco Bay Area, is the leading provider of desktop and Web-enabled mortgage industry productivity technology. Ellie Mae's ePASS Web-transaction platform is the industry standard, connecting more than 30,000 third-party mortgage origination companies with leading wholesale and correspondent lenders and 90,000 settlement service providers. Ellie Mae products include the Encompass mortgage management system, Contour and Genesis loan origination software, Executive Web Sites and Ellie Mae Docs. To learn more about Ellie Mae, call (888) 955-9100 or visit www.elliemae.com Ellie Mae(R), ePASS(R), Encompass(TM), Contour(TM), Genesis(TM), Executive Web Sites(TM), Ellie Mae Docs(TM) are the sole property of Ellie Mae, Inc. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]