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New Release Simplifies Electronic Signature Offering

SALT LAKE CITY, UT, March 31, 2010 - Document generation with Docu Prep has just become a whole lot easier and more flexible. Recent updates to Docu Prepʼs "MyPortal" will now allow customers to create and edit initial and closing documents as well as other functions in one usable site.

In this update, users get web-based document generation that ties directly to electronic signature (initial disclosure and closing documents), reporting, and auditing in a comprehensive approach. "MyPortal will create a simple, unified process for customers," Docu Prepʼs Software Engineer Brian Ashton said.

In order to provide consistency for the customer, programming such as client profiling, carries over into this MyPortal release from any system the customer may be running with Docu Prep. Additionally, the screens and documents are patterned to follow the newest RESPA guidelines and meet state and federal regulations.

"This update is a key part to our electronic disclosure and closing process called Entire Electronic Signature Solution or EESS (pronounced ʻeaseʼ)," commented Ashton.

The MyPortal changes will go into effect Monday, April 5. Please feel free to contact Docu Prep with any questions by contacting support at support@docuprep.com.

Salt Lake City Resident Devotes Time and Energy Towards Feeding the Hungry

Growing up in the Dominican Republic with a deceased father, forced Rafael Kyremes to experience hunger as a young child while his mother struggled to feed his family.

Years later, Rafael Kyremes, now a current Utah resident, joined with members of Wasatch Presbyterian Church to help transport Salt Lake Cityʼs hungry and homeless to their church building to provide them with a good meal. After several years, he took the leadership of continuing this project. Twenty-eight years later, along with faithful support of time and money from members of Wasatch Presbyterian and many others in the community, Kyremes continues to supply food for Utahʼs hunger-stricken population. "I wanted to help the less fortunate in the community," Kyremes said. "I didnʼt want people to go through the same experience I did."

Kyremes began his humanitarian work before homeless shelters were built. Every Wednesday, Kyremes and his crew of volunteers would bus hundreds of impoverished Utahns to Wasatch Presbyterian to take part of a hot meal. Unfortunately, the growing price of busing required Kyremes to seek financial aid to support his organization. Luckily, the Salvation Army came through and the Dominican native could continue his generous efforts.

His mission still continues today, with the help of various church organizations in the area, as he and his volunteers assemble 600 sandwiches on the last Tuesday of every month. The sandwiches are delivered to St. Vincent dePaul Resource Center in downtown Salt Lake City on the last Wednesday of the every month. St. Vincentʼs provides daily hot meals or sack lunches for struggling people in the community.

After dealing with two back surgeries and arthritis, Kyremes said heʼll continue his efforts as long as he is physically able to. "This is an opportunity to give back," he said. "[In America] we throw away more than we consume. Itʼs a disgrace people are going hungry. We shouldnʼt have the situation, but unfortunately we do."

In addition to the monthly sandwich supply, come every Easter holiday, Kyremes provides a hearty, traditional dinner for the less fortunate. The meal includes a variety of delicious foods, perhaps allowing for a more enjoyable Easter experience for those who may be homeless or alone. "We appreciate what we have, when you see the situation on the streets or in the shelters," Kyremes commented. This yearʼs holiday feast pulled in 549 people.

"I watched Rafael work in this area for years," Docu Prep, President Scott Buchanan stated. "Iʼve admired his ability to draw in various church organizations, communities, businesses and youth groups with a common purpose of feeding hungry people. We wanted to ensure that he could continue to do that this year."

Will The Mortgage Industry Witness Another Influx Of Nontraditional Lenders?

By Ed F. Wallace, Jr. Ph.D.

The mortgage business has been through odd changes. For a long time, it was viewed as the irrevocable turf of the thrifts. That is no longer true.

Mortgage lending has also usually been profitable, but never a perfect business. Portfolio lenders had fairly high profit potential, but also fairly high risk. Mortgage bankers had less risk but also less potential to build gross dollars of profit, and therefore less potential to grow. Today, these fundamentals have changed, partly because of an active secondary market and the array of high yield, high risk loan programs placed into the market over the past few years.

Finally, the mortgage business was seldom one to attract "outsiders." It was regulated and fragmented. Government controlled who could create a mortgage loan and where, and who could own a lending institution. Every town and village usually had an ample supply of lenders. In the heyday of U.S. business expansion, the allure was in manufacturing and selling the products that would fill a home, not supplying the funds to buy the empty shell. Now these fundamentals have changed most of all.

Changes in the mortgage business have been part of the overall change in the financial services industry. In fact, the mortgage business has been affected more than any other financial industry segment by the half-steps that deregulation took as well as laws and guidelines which seemed at times to change with the wind. Because of those changes, financial service companies have scrambled to use every available loophole in the law that would allow them to put in place a nationwide delivery system, to get a jump on the competition. Mortgage banking, un-regulated by the federal government as banks and thrifts were, became one of the most popular loopholes for traditional lenders in the early and mid 1980’s. In 2010, loopholes may be becoming most popular among nontraditional players.

Abruptly, the action among the nontraditional players heated up in 1995. K-Mart made clear some of its intentions to become a very big mortgage company. General Motors Acceptance Corp. made two acquisitions which by year-end made its servicing portfolio the largest in the U.S.

And these were just two of the notable events. All in all, in 1995, the mortgage industry witnessed either the entrance or newly-initiated major growth plans of a large national retailer, two large automakers, a huge part of the life insurance industry, the two largest container manufacturers, and the two largest independent consumer finance companies.

At the time, this was an invasion to beat any others we had ever seen in any industry. Never, to our knowledge, had companies of such differing base industries or companies of such huge combined size gone after a single industry segment in so short a time. It is astonishing, and should be so recorded in business history books, that the mortgage business in one year drew in K-Mart, GM, Ford, Prudential, Metropolitan, American Can, Owens-Illinois, Household Finance, and Beneficial.

At the time, American Can’s mortgage chief Ken Berg said, "The industry is just now being recognized. When we first went to Wall Street, people said, ‘What’s a mortgage banker?’ I think today they’ve found out."

Indeed, as they find out most things, Wall Street discovered mortgage banking most pleasantly by collecting fees and most recently by the collapse of the mortgage industry.

In many areas reviewing the past may give us a light on the future. As was the case in 1995, nontraditional lenders entered a fragmented market. Likewise, could a new group of nontraditional lenders be in the stages of capturing market share and taking over where banks, savings and loans, and credit unions have either exited the business, purposely reduced their market share, or tightened credit requirements thus limiting the borrower’s ability to obtain a mortgage?

In a recent Wall Street Journal article, Karen Tally identified one such nontraditional banking company that is filling the void left by these financial institutions. Wal-Mart expects a 50% increase this year in the number of the company’s stores offering bank-like services. This increase would give the retailer 1500 "money centers" which is a little less than one for every two Wal-Marts in the U.S.

The primary focus of these money centers is to attract the lower-income customers who do not have a significant banking relationship, which the federal government estimates to be one in four U.S. households.

In Ms. Talley’s article she quotes Jane Thompson, President of Wal-Mart Financial Services in saying, "We think banks are not as interested in this customer and have a lot of other things on their plates, so we see a lot of space to service customers’ basic financial needs."

At the present time the Wal-Mart money centers generate 3 million to 5 million transactions per week. Although Wal-Mart has tried and failed to obtain a bank charter in the past, fearing the company could force the bank it controls to lend to preferred parties and not to its competitors, who is to say that times will not evolve to let Wal-Mart as well as other nontraditional powerhouses into the mortgage arena if for nothing more, but to try and serve a segment of the population which otherwise is starting to be culled out of the mix despite superior credit scores and the ability to repay a mortgage.

As we all know, financial institutions must comply with federal, state, and local requirements for lending as well as banking services. However, many areas of the country are underserved in these areas which could open the door for nontraditional companies to enter a market.

It will be interesting to see who may or may not enter the mortgage industry over the next few years. I would estimate the character of any entrant will be that of bigness. This in part, is due to the capital it takes not only to start an operation, but to also maintain it until production levels can be reached, which sets the company into a self-sufficient mode.

With all that has happened in the financial sector and the new proposed regulations, it could possibly be another cycle that will place nontraditional companies at the forefront of the industry as it did in the 1990s.

Ed F. Wallace, Jr. Ph.D. is the Chief Integration Officer for Docu Prep, Inc. with over 32 years in the industry relating to the production, operations, and technical aspects of the mortgage business.