Technology: MERS Passes Three Million Mark as Daily Volume Gets a Boost.(Brief Article)

The electronic registry for tracking ownership of mortgage loans and servicing rights has registered more than three million loans and continues to pick up volume.

In fact, MERS president and CEO R.K. Arnold said the system is currently registering about 6,000 loans per day, up from about 1,200 per day at the beginning of last summer. By the end of this year, he anticipates that about a third new loans will be registered as they are originated.

MERS hopes to have about 7 million loans registered on the system by year-end, accounting for a little less than 10% of all outstanding loans.

While the mortgage industry has embraced the registry more slowly than many of its backers hoped, leaders of the effort are encouraged by the growing volume. MERS, formally Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc., ended 1999 with just over one million loans registered. Nine months later it hit the two million mark.

It took just five months to hit three million.

A significant aspect of the three million loan threshold is that it occurred in the normal course of business, not because of any large bulk registration, Mr. Arnold said. Some MERS lenders have been registering bulk portfolios as a result of servicing transfers.

Mr. Arnold said the daily volume of registrations will jump again now that GMAC Mortgage has converted its retail and wholesale channels to MERS. Other big lenders, such as Washington Mutual and ABN Amro, are currently working with MERS to integrate their correspondent channels as well.