Ellie Mae Announces Encompass v3.5 Banker and Custom Editions

New enhancements make it easier to increase compliance, save time and transact increasingly popular FHA products, all while improving security

PLEASANTON, CA—May 5, 2008—Ellie Mae, the award-winning provider of innovative software and services for the mortgage industry, has announced version 3.5 of the Banker and Custom Editions of the Encompass mortgage management system, adding many new enhancements.  The enhancements, which improve security and increase compliance, also streamline a number of tasks in loan processing, secondary marketing, process management, business management, and security and administration.  The upgrades, which were implemented in direct response to needs expressed by Encompass users, enable bankers and brokers to better position themselves for profitability and longevity, and to do so in a faster, more efficient manner.

“In today’s market, bankers and brokers are more concerned than ever with achieving compliance and heightening their security measures,” states Jonathan Corr, chief strategy officer for Ellie Mae.  “The truth is that issues like accuracy, security and compliance have taken center stage because they’re so critical to achieving profitability and maintaining longevity, especially in this difficult down market.  Now, with these new enhancements, companies can ensure they’re transacting quality loans even faster and more efficiently than before.”

Among the enhancements, users will find improved FHA support, which includes new input and output forms that reduce the time it takes to process FHA loans.  “With more lenders moving toward FHA loans, we wanted to make it faster and easier to originate and process FHA transactions,” explains Corr.  “The changes we’ve made will help lenders to bolster business in an area that’s becoming a strong focus for lenders who are implementing a back-to-basics strategy.”

Management users will find it even easier to track and monitor activity in key business areas with six dashboard improvements that enable real-time reporting with higher customizability and filtering.  “These six improvements give managers the ability to create customized real-time graphical snapshots of the business, so they can monitor the state of their businesses and their profitability according to their own objectives,” explains Corr.  “Of course, users can always opt to use the pre-loaded snapshot views, but now they have the freedom to access information that’s specific to their own unique goals as well.”  Additionally, new field trigger rules now automate data being entered into fields based on other fields being completed.

The system’s enhanced security features include a user profile lockdown that ensures consistency for company reporting by preventing users from changing parts of their profiles, and auto-population of FHA county limit tables, purchase advice forms, and mortgage insurance tables for VA, FHA and conventional loans, which save time as well as helping to ensure higher accuracy and compliance.

For the growing number of broker/bankers, Ellie Mae has added the ability to create channel-specific business rules that allow dual function operations to apply the appropriate security and business flow for loans that are banked versus brokered. 

Secondary marketing users will now benefit from a lock request approval process that has been enhanced to allow fields to update only when a lock is approved, and a new Fannie Mae loan delivery interface that allows for the export of a Fannie Mae loan delivery-formatted file.  Lock snapshot reporting has been adjusted to enable fields from current and prior lock snapshots to be included in reports.

“The broker/banker community is growing.  And in this difficult market, companies are focusing more on security, accuracy and compliance, and more and more lenders are pursuing FHA business,” states Corr.  “We’ve taken all of those factors into account when making adjustments to the Encompass Banker and Custom Editions.”

Version 3.5 of Encompass Banker and Custom Editions will be available for release to customers in early July 2008.

About Ellie Mae
Ellie Mae is an award-winning provider of software and services for the mortgage industry, offering comprehensive business solutions for mortgage brokers, mortgage bankers and lenders. The company's key offerings include the flagship Encompass Mortgage Management Solution, the Encompass WebCenter, Electronic Document Management (EDM), Encompass CenterWise™ and Encompass Closer. More than 150,000 mortgage professionals use the Encompass mortgage management solution, including two-thirds of the nation’s top 300 brokers and nine of the top 10. Ellie Mae is recognized for linking the many parties critical to the mortgage origination industry through its ePASS Network. One third of the nation's almost $2 trillion in new mortgages originated every year pass through the ePASS platform, enabling mortgage companies to easily conduct electronic business transactions with dozens of leading lenders and thousands of settlement service providers. 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.

2008 Ellie Mae, Inc. All rights reserved. Ellie Mae, Encompass, and ePASS are registered trademarks and Encompass CenterWise, and Ellie Mae Closer are trademarks of Ellie Mae, Inc. in the United States.

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