— Resitrader by Optimal Blue connects lenders and investors in real time to accelerate results —

For the last several years, the mortgage industry has experienced a disruptive wave of technology innovation by vendors aiming to improve results and lower costs. Until recently, the vast majority of these innovations have focused on automating the front-end of the digital mortgage loan process, leaving significant opportunities to automate post-closing processes such as whole loan pricing and loan trading. Now, Optimal Blue has upended the status quo in the mortgage industry by building a revolutionary digital marketplace that is transforming the way loans are bought and sold in the secondary market.

Optimal Blue’s recent acquisition of market leader Resitrader created the largest loan trading platform in the industry. In the last year, Resitrader saw a 350% increase in the number of sellers and more than 300% growth in loan trading volume, while also increasing the offer-to-purchase rate for sellers on the platform.

“Given Optimal Blue’s unique and strong market share position, the acquisition put us in the front seat to create an industry-standard platform for whole loan pricing and trading,” explained John Ardy, vice president of Resitrader by Optimal Blue.

By connecting lenders and investors in real time, Resitrader automates what used to be a manual, email-based trading process and makes it incredibly scalable. Besides the immediate time savings, the Resitrader platform fosters real relationships between engaged buyers and sellers, which is mutually beneficial to both sides.

Benefits for sellers

On the sell side, Resitrader empowers the lender to optimize true best execution by offering loans to an entire marketplace of buyers instead of the four or five investors they are used to dealing with. Originators can connect with new investors almost instantly and accelerate the traditionally protracted, difficult shadow bidding process, so what used to take weeks is now accomplished in seconds by clicking on someone’s name to view their pricing.

Benefits for buyers

The transparency of pricing within the platform creates the opportunity for sellers to find investors quickly and provides investors with valuable insight into the competitiveness of their bids. Resitrader reports this information automatically, so investors can see why they won or lost certain bids and adjust their strategy accordingly.

“Resitrader takes a function that was manual from end to end and fully automates all of it,” continued Ardy. “It streamlines communication and eliminates the latency that occurs with the manual process. It’s very exciting — in an area that was never very exciting.”

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

Understanding their critical role as investors, Optimal Blue has paid special attention to streamlining connections with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The company completed an early integration with Fannie Mae’s Pricing and Execution – Whole Loan application last year and was first to integrate with Freddie Mac’s Loan Selling Advisor in August. Because Optimal Blue operates in a SaaS environment, Resitrader clients had full access to the new capabilities on the same day.

The integration with Loan Selling Advisor allows the user to seamlessly acquire Freddie Mac pricing data and compare against alternative executions, such as bulk bids. It also enables the automated commitment of Freddie Mac loans by returning trade confirmations directly back to the Resitrader user, so they don’t have to use multiple systems to conduct a single transaction.

Optimal Blue then followed up with an enhanced integration that fully automates the cash pricing and commitment process to include cash pay-ups for fixed-rate mortgages across all specified loan attributes. Prior to this integration, sellers would have to download and print a .PDF from Freddie Mac and calculate these loan details.

Now, that data pull takes seconds.

New efficiencies

Once buyers and sellers see the ability to interact at such a fast rate, the platform quickly becomes indispensable to their business model.

Jim Glennon is the director of secondary services at Optimal Blue and he noted a major gain in efficiencies using Resitrader for Optimal Blue’s full-service hedge advisory clients. “As we add new layers of innovation to our core platform, we are giving lenders and investors incredible new opportunities to get things done faster and better. This is part of the mortgage process that no one spent much time on, and now it has caught up to the rest of the digital mortgage process,” Glennon said.

As significant as the evolution of the Resitrader platform is individually, the seamless integration of Optimal Blue’s solutions across the entire secondary market platform is the true game changer.

“When Resitrader operated independently, we were able to grow to $2 billion a month,” said Ardy. “Now, backed by the power of Optimal Blue’s Digital Mortgage Marketplace, our growth rate will accelerate and catapult Resitrader into the largest industry destination for digital loan trading and bring considerable value to platform participants.”

As adoption of these interactive loan trading platforms flourish, Optimal Blue aims to continue looking toward the future of the industry with an ongoing commitment to deliver market-leading mortgage automation.

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

— Mutual clients immediately gain efficiencies in pricing, committing, and trading Freddie Mac loans —

Optimal Blue, the leading secondary marketing automation platform and largest online exchange for whole loan trading, announced today the completion of integration with Freddie Mac’s Loan Selling AdvisorSM application programming interface. By connecting the two platforms in real-time, Optimal Blue has enabled significant workflow efficiencies for its clients by fully automating the process of pricing Freddie Mac loans and securing Freddie Mac commitments.

The planning for this highly demanded interface began months ago, guided by the initial goal of bringing additional operational improvements to Freddie Mac sellers and servicers that utilize Optimal Blue’s innovative whole loan trading platform, Resitrader. Available immediately to all Resitrader clients without the burden of time-consuming system upgrades, this integration enables users to seamlessly acquire Freddie Mac pricing data and facilitates comparisons against alternative executions such as bulk bids. Additionally, this advanced integration enables the automated commitment of Freddie Mac loans by returning trade confirmations directly back to the Resitrader user, thus eliminating the need to utilize multiple systems to conduct a single transaction.

“Optimal Blue’s integration enables me to swiftly compare live quotes and complete pricing from Freddie Mac against all of my execution options,” explained Anthony Bruschi, Director, Capital Markets Trade Desk at New Penn Financial. “Additionally, I am able to commit all loans with Freddie Mac efficiently and accurately without ever having to leave the Resitrader system.”

Now that Freddie Mac’s Loan Selling AdvisorSM has been integrated with Optimal Blue’s Resitrader, the company has turned its attention toward leveraging this automation with the other solutions in its enterprise secondary marketing platform. Optimal Blue’s next phases will enable Freddie Mac pricing and commitment integrations with its hedge advisory and market-leading product and pricing solutions. In doing so, Optimal Blue will provide an efficient, end-to-end user experience for loan officers and secondary professionals conducting business with Freddie Mac.

“Optimal Blue is completely aligned with Freddie Mac’s commitment to deliver compelling innovations to our joint clients,” said Bob Brandt, Vice President of Marketing and Alliances at Optimal Blue. “Our end-to-end pricing and commitment integration between the Resitrader platform and Freddie Mac’s Loan Selling AdvisorSM is a perfect representation of this, bringing first-to-market innovations to our clients to further facilitate automated transactions between the buyers and sellers of mortgage loans through our Digital Mortgage Marketplace.”

ABOUT FREDDIE MAC
Freddie Mac makes home possible for millions of families and individuals by providing mortgage capital to lenders. Since our creation by Congress in 1970, we’ve made housing more accessible and affordable for homebuyers and renters in communities nationwide. We are building a better housing finance system for homebuyers, renters, lenders and taxpayers. Learn more at FreddieMac.com, Twitter @FreddieMac and Freddie Mac’s blog.

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

— System automates entire secondary marketing process; includes major innovation supporting hedge with mandatory cash commitments —

Optimal Blue LLC, leading provider of secondary marketing automation and services in the mortgage industry, recently announced the introduction of an unprecedented new Enterprise Secondary Marketing Solution for credit unions. This new solution includes an industry first – a note rate hedging module specifically designed to support how credit unions sell loans to the GSEs.

Credit unions that sell directly to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac can now take advantage of this new offering that combines Optimal Blue’s best-in-class secondary marketing automation, product eligibility and pricing engine, and note rate hedging, as well as the bespoke features needed to offer credit union members a more competitive product lineup.

Among the platform’s unique features – designed specifically with credit unions and their members in mind – are instantaneous and highly-accurate eligibility and pricing, a real-time pricing and commitment integration with e, advanced automation that eliminates the tedium and potential risks of manual spreadsheets, and significant fiscal risk-minimalization through focused pipeline hedge capabilities.

“This is an innovative new enterprise solution that for the first time, fully supports the unique challenges that credit unions face in their day-to-day approach and processes,” Said Scott Happ, CEO of Optimal Blue. “Rather than using a patchwork of systems and manual methods, credit union executives can now automate the entire secondary marketing process, resulting in significant efficiency and profitability improvements.”

For additional details on the elements, functionality, and effect of an Enterprise Secondary Marketing Solution for credit unions and the digital mortgage market, Optimal Blue has developed a resource titled Enterprise Secondary Marketing Solutions: Automating Content to Commitment and Everything In Between. Read White Paper.

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