Standardized Electronic Delivery to Investors is a Must.

Phoenix, AZ -- Investors like Freddie Mac and Flagstar have delivered their e-mortgage specifications in recent months. Fannie Mae and Countrywide have had specs for some time. Lenders wanted more e-delivery choices when selling loans on the secondary market but how do they keep up?

"The industry needs an e-delivery platform that offers a standardized user experience," said Ruth Thompson, president and CEO at Desert Document Services. "We also need early adopters to embrace this movement and incentive programs to help them along."

Standards bodies like MISMO are actually working toward this end to provide both consistency and clarity. "The problem in going electronic is that related parties like auditors don't understand the electronic world. They want paper," said Adam Hall, vice president, process and technology at IndyMac Bank. "We actually have a loan delivery spec as part of MISMO but nobody is using it. We need adoption.

In fact, MISMO is in the process of updating the e-delivery standard. "MISMO's secondary loan delivery dataset version 2 went into the 30-day review stage," said Ed Ransden, director of product management at Desert Document Services. "It should be in final approval by March. The standardization was based on getting away from proprietary coding.

"Fannie and Freddie were driving this for the past two years. The goal was to get to one spec. However, there are certain nuances to the Fannie and Freddie specs, but for the most part it is standardized. There will be exceptions, but they will be minor.

"It used to be that all the correspondents had to write to Citi or Countrywide or Fannie or Wells or Freddie, etc. So, they wanted them to pick one spec, which is why MISMO as updated this standard."

But will the industry adopt it? "It's hard to implement all of the e-delivery specs at once," answered Layne Sapp, MILA founder and chief executive officer. "You'll still have to deliver the recording docs to each county, which is difficult. We're working on different technology to make e-signatures ...