Tag: Comergence

South Street Securities, LLC Adopts Optimal Blue to Elevate Regulatory Standards in Broker-Dealer Market

— Digital oversight and process automation provides added assurance to satisfy internal and regulatory requirements —

South Street Securities, LLC (“South Street”), a Tier 1 member of FICC and MBSD with a current balance sheet of $30+ billion, has selected Optimal Blue, the leading provider of secondary marketing automation and third-party oversight solutions in the mortgage industry, to strengthen the company’s compliance regime. In adopting this technology, South Street further demonstrates their position as a premier broker-dealer in a niche market by leveraging a comprehensive due diligence and surveillance platform to satisfy rigorous business and oversight requirements.

Utilizing the electronic document collection and financial status reporting modules available in the Comergence platform provides South Street with a deeper understanding of a client’s financial health at the time of application, while enabling ongoing visibility during the life of the relationship. Relying on system automation removes what was previously a labor-intensive review process, while maintaining company protocols and compliance with regulatory mandates.

South Street’s MBS division began TBA Pipeline Hedging for originator clients in 2017. According to David DeBlase, Chief Financial Officer of South Street, the decision to move forward with Optimal Blue came after meticulous evaluations of compliance, surveillance, and on-boarding platforms. “We determined that the Comergence platform was able to effortlessly facilitate the various credit and compliance demands of a complex process that grants margin and hedging lines to our clients. Further, the system seamlessly complements the robust infrastructure that South Street employs to on-board, trade, and clear securities.”

Comergence was acquired by Optimal Blue because the company was widely recognized for its innovations in due diligence automation and ongoing surveillance services – a capability unmatched in the mortgage industry. Popularity has continued to grow, with new segments like the broker-dealer market now adopting these services.

“This is a huge endorsement of our technology,” said Greg Schroeder, Vice President of Comergence at Optimal Blue. “It further validates our enterprise automation approach that is centered on process improvement and acceleration rooted in data insight – without compromising compliance demands.”

ABOUT SOUTH STREET SECURITIES, LLC
Established in 2001, South Street Securities (SSS) is a FINRA-regulated broker/dealer that concentrates on Repo Cash Investment, Repo Security Financing Services and Mortgage Backed Securities for mortgage originators. As a Tier 1 member of Fixed Income Clearing Corp (FICC), DTC, and MBSD with full netting rights, South Street self-clears all transactions.

South Street provides access to the capital markets for mortgage originators that need to hedge their forward pipeline exposure by allocating trading lines and margin to facilitate transactions. South Street partners with the leading analytics firms to provide the best execution for mortgage originators.

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PRESS CONTACT FOR SOUTH STREET SECURITIES, LLC
David DeBlase
Chief Financial Officer
(212) 803-5050
david.deblase@sssnyc.com

PRESS CONTACT FOR OPTIMAL BLUE
Robert J. Brandt
Vice President, Marketing & Strategic Alliances
(469) 609-5585
bbrandt@optimalblue.com

Optimal Blue’s Innovative Tech Development Results in Record Growth

— The company continues to refine secondary market automation for lenders —

Optimal Blue’s significant investment in developing and deploying comprehensive secondary market automation propelled the company’s growth in the first half of 2017, netting a 21% increase in new clients.

The company released a number of new enhancements to its end-to-end technology this year, including a market share analytics solution, a business intelligence tool and a social media compliance solution.

It also launched capabilities that integrate mortgage technology systems across the industry. Through its highly scalable API interface platform, lenders can easily integrate compliant product and pricing content with the leading third-party technology and service providers they rely upon for lead generation, CRM, consumer-direct, mobile, LOS and more.

With Optimal Blue solutions, lenders can automate their entire secondary marketing function and interact seamlessly with the industry’s largest network of leading investors, all through a single, unified platform.

“The competitive mortgage industry landscape comes with numerous complex challenges, and our goal is to enable customers to manage and conquer those challenges as simply and as efficiently as possible,” said Scott Happ, CEO of Optimal Blue.

Optimal Blue’s Digital Mortgage Marketplace connects originators, investors and providers and the company continues to forge strategic partnerships with other mortgage tech providers, such as Roostify and Easy Mortgage Apps. In May, Optimal Blue announced its acquisition of Comergence, a provider of due diligence automation and ongoing surveillance services.

“Optimal Blue and Comergence are well-aligned around our principal mission of facilitating transactions between buyers and sellers of loans,” Happ said. “Comergence solutions help build trust and confidence among marketplace participants by verifying third-party compliance in real-time, a capability unmatched in the industry.”

The Comergence acquisition was one more milestone in the company’s ultimate two-pronged mission: to enable originators to automate their entire secondary marketing operation, from content through commitment; while enabling investors and leading providers to accelerate the loan origination process by leveraging automated data exchange, streamlined value delivery, robust innovations and actionable business intelligence.

The market response to Optimal Blue’s development and acquisition of cutting-edge solutions had been dramatic, with record customer growth and adoption this year. The company’s Digital Mortgage Marketplace already touches one of every four mortgage loans in the U.S., and Optimal Blue is poised to continue that growth with its commitment to innovation.

“I am thrilled to welcome so many new customers to Optimal Blue, and I’m equally honored that they’ve entrusted our secondary marketing solutions to further automate their operation and successfully accomplish their technology and business goals,” Happ said.

This piece was originally featured on HousingWire.com.

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PRESS CONTACT FOR OPTIMAL BLUE
Robert J. Brandt
Vice President, Marketing & Strategic Alliances
(469) 609-5585
bbrandt@optimalblue.com

Optimal Blue Launches Social Media Compliance Solution

— Turnkey service automates regulatory oversight, eliminates manual tasks and financial risks —

Comergence, an Optimal Blue company and a trusted compliance solutions provider to the mortgage industry, announced today the launch of its newest compliance solution, Social Media Compliance. Powered by sophisticated regulatory intelligence capabilities and embedded with the specific policies and procedures of a licensed mortgage originator, the unique and leading-edge service addresses the growing need and seemingly insurmountable task of monitoring social and digital media communications within a regulatory framework.

“Social media is a powerful tool used more and more by today’s loan officers to source business. Yet, with numerous regulations today and even more expected in the future, the risk is high for unintentional social media mistakes that could pose significant financial risks for lenders,” stated Scott Happ, Chief Executive Officer of Optimal Blue. “We recognize that adherence to growing compliance demands will be challenging for lenders if social media compliance remains a manual, time-consuming effort coming at a great cost. By delivering this robust automation at an extremely affordable price, lenders discover an immediate ROI – regardless of whether they have five loan officers or hundreds.”

The Social Media Compliance system can evaluate social media activity across all loan officers and all venues in real time via automated scheduling. The platform also identifies potential violations, highlights usage trends, and provides 360-degree audit reports for a deeper violation review so lenders can communicate and remediate internally and externally – all within a single, turnkey compliance tool. The system provides enormous advantages for the hundreds of organizations that already rely upon other Comergence Compliance solutions, including streamlined organizational and user set-up.

“Social media presents a large playing field and a new frontier for today’s lenders that is not going away anytime soon. Leveraging automation removes the heavy lifting and positions lenders to properly take full advantage of the opportunities through this great marketing asset,” said Greg Schroeder, Vice President of Comergence. “Everything lenders need to self-manage social media compliance is available in our solution, bringing efficiencies, simplicities, and real-time oversight with little effort.”

For more information on the social media compliance demands in the mortgage industry, Optimal Blue has developed a resource titled The Importance of Developing a Social Media Compliance Policy. The white paper can be accessed at – http://comergencecompliance.com/smc-whitepaper1/.

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PRESS CONTACT FOR OPTIMAL BLUE
Robert J. Brandt
Vice President, Marketing & Strategic Alliances
(469) 609-5585
bbrandt@optimalblue.com

Optimal Blue Expands Network by Acquiring Comergence, Leading Third-Party Oversight Platform

— Building a more trusted mortgage marketplace —

Optimal Blue, operator of the mortgage industry’s digital marketplace and provider of comprehensive secondary marketing solutions, announced today that it has acquired Comergence Compliance.

Comergence is the leading provider of third-party oversight solutions in the mortgage industry. Founded in 2008, Comergence provides an array of third-party originator (TPO), appraiser, and social media risk management solutions that verify third-party compliance in real-time, a capability unmatched in the industry. Comergence has been widely recognized by the industry for its innovations in due diligence automation and ongoing surveillance services.

“We are thrilled to welcome Comergence to the Optimal Blue family and we are looking forward to extending their network management platform to our customers,” said Scott Happ, CEO of Optimal Blue. “Comergence solutions help build trust and confidence among marketplace participants by verifying third-party compliance in real-time, a capability unmatched in the industry.”

“We provide the best due diligence and ongoing surveillance services in the industry,” noted Greg Schroeder, President of Comergence. “We believe that by being part of Optimal Blue we can bring the benefits of our technology and expertise to an even larger segment of the mortgage marketplace.”

Michael Stallings, Executive Vice President of Comergence said, “Recent Comergence innovations, including an analytics tool to help account executives identify new TPO opportunities and a breakthrough solution for social media risk monitoring, strongly complement Optimal Blue’s existing product offering.”

“Optimal Blue and Comergence are well-aligned around our principal mission of facilitating transactions between buyers and sellers of loans,” added Scott Happ. “We are very pleased that Greg, Michael, and the entire Comergence team will be joining Optimal Blue as we execute our shared growth plans.”

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PRESS CONTACT FOR OPTIMAL BLUE
Robert J. Brandt
Vice President, Marketing & Strategic Alliances
(469) 609-5585
bbrandt@optimalblue.com