Wells Fargo Funding Authorizes Encompass360™ as
E-Signing Technology Partner

PLEASANTON, CA—April 12, 2010—Ellie Mae^®, the enterprise mortgage originations technology provider for mortgage bankers, mortgage brokers, community banks, credit unions and other mortgage lenders, announces that Wells Fargo Funding has approved Encompass360™, Ellie Mae’s mortgage management solution, for e-signing and e-delivery of disclosure documents. Users of Encompass360 can now meet Wells Fargo Funding submission requirements after not only electronically delivering disclosure documents to borrowers, but also having borrowers electronically upload, sign and deliver disclosures back to the lender via Ellie Mae’s WebCenter, a consumer portal that securely connects borrowers to their originator’s Encompass360 system.    

To use the e-signing process, Encompass360 users need only enable borrower access to their disclosures through CenterWise™, Ellie Mae’s web and electronic document management solution. Encompass360 does the rest—it provides secure and compliant transmission of the documents, instructs borrowers on how to proceed with each step in the process, educates borrowers on e-signing and delivers the disclosure documents directly to the borrower’s file within the user’s Encompass360 system.

“Wells Fargo Funding’s correspondents are able to leverage Encompass360’s robust capacity for fully auditable, transparent and secure e-signing and e-delivery of disclosure documents,” says Jonathan Corr, chief strategy officer for Ellie Mae. “Encompass360 was created to provide the built-in ability to leverage the power and speed of the Internet, so all Wells Fargo Funding needed to do was provide its best-practice guidelines and requirements.”

In order to comply with Wells Fargo Funding’s certification requirements, Ellie Mae made several adjustments to Encompass360’s e-signing process.  For example, the borrower and co-borrower can no longer e-sign simultaneously. Once one borrower completes and is confirmed for the e-signing process, the co-borrower(s) will then be able to start the next e-signing process.  Before borrowers can view loan disclosures and documents, they must review an e-disclosure agreement. This ensures that the borrower consents to receiving certain disclosures in electronic format rather than in paper form. Borrowers are also required to review each page of Wells Fargo Funding’s disclosure package before they can e-sign and accept the terms of the documents. 

“Borrowers must click on a signature point at the bottom of each page before they can proceed to the next one, and if they try to skip a page, there are error prompts that inform the borrower that a signature or initial point was missed,” says Corr.  “This helps ensure that borrowers review each and every page of the disclosure package.”

In order to become certified as an e-signing partner, Wells Fargo Funding also requires that technologies be able to produce an audit trail that indicates that the entire disclosure process was completed correctly and compliantly. 

“Encompass360 was built for complete, 360-degree transparency, so the system is already designed to produce comprehensive, transparent audit trails,” says Corr. “This is not only about speed and efficiency.  We’re very pleased to have Wells Fargo Funding recognize Encompass360 as providing a secure and compliant way to facilitate e-signing and e-delivery.” 

About Ellie Mae
Ellie Mae provides enterprise mortgage origination technology solutions for mortgage bankers, mortgage brokers, community banks, credit unions and other mortgage lenders. The company's offerings include the Encompass^® and Encompass360™ Mortgage Management Solutions, Encompass CenterWise™ websites and electronic document management services, and Encompass Closer™ document preparation services. Ellie Mae also hosts the Ellie Mae Network™ that allows mortgage professionals to conduct electronic business transactions with the lenders and settlement service providers they work with to process and fund loans. Ellie Mae was founded in 1997 and is based in Pleasanton, California. To learn more about Ellie Mae, visit www.EllieMae.com or call 877.355.4362.

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© 2010 Ellie Mae, Inc. All rights reserved. Ellie Mae and Encompass are registered trademarks and Encompass360, Encompass CenterWise, Encompass Closer and Ellie Mae Network are trademarks of Ellie Mae, Inc. in the United States.