Sysdome Inc. has won a contract to provide mortgage broker approval and management services to Countrywide Financial Corp. and has unveiled a product designed to help lenders keep tabs on mortgage brokers.
The technology company’s new offering is called Broker Score. Countrywide will be using another Sysdome product called Third Party Review that helps users authenticate brokers.
Preston James, a managing director at Countrywide and its chief operating officer, said in a press release issued by his company Monday that Countrywide “has relationships with more than 30,000 mortgage brokers across the country. In order to get our new originators up and running quickly, we have contracted with Sysdome to implement a faster, more consistent process to approve brokers.”
Third Party Review performs due diligence on brokers by checking their applications and doing a series of searches.
Sysdome, of Calabasas, Calif., counts most of the largest mortgage lenders among its customers. Its client roster includes Chase Manhattan Mortgage, Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, Washington Mutual Inc., and Bank of America Corp.
Countrywide, which is also based in Calabasas, said it expects the relationship with Sysdome to smooth out additions to its already massive broker network.
Broker Score, which was also announced Monday, is meant to help lenders identify vulnerabilities in their broker network. The system assigns each originator a fraud score, and all the scores are organized into Sysdome’s National Fraud Protection Database, which is available by subscription.
Broker Score checks, among other things, a broker’s state licensing agency status and compliance with the U.S. Patriot Act. It also does news article searches and Social Security identity verification of a broker’s principals.
Bill Dallas, Sysdome’s chairman and one of its owners, said the goal with Broker Score program was to create a database that would give lenders a sort of “Good Housekeeping seal of approval.”
Mr. Dallas, a wholesale lender who is also the founder of the subprime lender First Franklin Financial Corp. (which was recently bought by National City Corp. of Cleveland), added that Sysdome’s deals with other lenders — for instance, to provide fraud prevention on individual loans — will help it expand the database.
Sysdome said in its press release announcing Broker Score that brokers can use the system to monitor themselves, “explain irregularities” in loans they have brokered, and “dispute … incorrect information.”
The company said it hopes high scores will come to be viewed as a marketing tool for brokers that achieve them.
