Ellie Mae Adds Loan Product and Pricing to Encompass

Latest update to Encompass 2.9 helps loan officers make greater commissions and find better rates for borrowers

Dublin, CA—September 27, 2006—Ellie Mae, an award-winning provider of innovative software and services for the mortgage industry, has announced the release of an update to Encompass® 2.9.

The Encompass update features a new "Product and Pricing" service that frees mortgage originators from the need to scour paper rate sheets and underwriting guidelines to determine product eligibility and pricing. Through a couple of mouse clicks, users can now easily and quickly pre-qualify an opportunity across dozens of lenders.

"Most mortgage originators still count on printed rate sheets to choose a loan and get pricing," explains Jonathan Corr, Ellie Mae's chief strategy officer. "This process is cumbersome, time-consuming, and does not guarantee the identification of the best suited product for the borrower, nor the best commission for the loan officer. Furthermore, printed rates are quickly outdated and unreliable."

The new Product and Pricing service is offered to Encompass users as a result of partnerships with BrokerBuddy™ and NYLX®, two leading providers of web-based product eligibility and pricing services. Through seamless integration with Encompass, users can search for the best loan program from dozens of Prime, ALT-A, Sub-prime, FHA and VA lenders in a single request without ever leaving Encompass. Each partner is fully integrated to support two way data connectivity to automatically transfer existing information from Encompass to the partner's system to process a product eligibility and pricing decisions. In addition, users can submit loans electronically to their favorite lenders from BrokerBuddy and NYLX® from within Encompass.

"We make it easy for originators to efficiently, accurately and easily find the best loan products for borrowers," explains Richard Kwiat, chief executive officer at Fort Lauderdale, Florida-based BrokerBuddy. "There are only a handful of lender sites that offer an instant online prequalification. When an originator is not using a service such as BrokerBuddy and they need to adjust a loan scenario, they have to start all over again and they will likely be limited to the one lender they were communicating with. With BrokerBuddy, the originator can find a scenario, change it, re-run it and have pricing and commission comparisons at their fingertips in a matter of seconds. Through BrokerBuddy's patent-pending online service, it's not uncommon for an originator to find an extra quarter point or half a point in additional premiums."

BrokerBuddy was first launched in July 2005, initially targeting the sub-prime market, where they considered there was a big need for the technology. They now estimate they have about 70 lenders on the system and growing, and about three quarters of those are sub-prime lenders.

NYLX®, a product eligibility and best execution loan pricing system which is also now integrated into Encompass, enables mortgage professionals to pre-qualify borrowers based on data such as credit grading, lender guidelines and risk-based adjusters. "With NYLX's patent-pending BestX™ solution, Encompass users can quickly qualify the widest array of loan products for borrowers with maximum profitability," explains John Alexander, president of Flanders, New Jersey-based NYLX®. "Additionally, it identifies the products and lenders that will pay the originator the highest commission, enabling our customers to make, on average, $600 more per loan than those not using our type of service."

Alexander adds, "This kind of technology is a must for mortgage professionals who are looking to improve both customer service and profitability. Having it integrated into Encompass will mean that many more people will have access to it, which is great for all involved."

NYLX can search for a wide range of loans including conventional, sub-prime, government, combination, A-minus, Alt-A and stand-alone product types from a full spectrum of correspondent and wholesale lenders.

The product and pricing service is offered to those paying a monthly subscription, and is available effective immediately to all Encompass users with current maintenance agreements.

About Ellie Mae, Inc.
Ellie Mae is an award-winning provider of software and services for the mortgage industry, which was recently named to the Inc. 500 list of America's fastest growing private companies. Ellie Mae provides a comprehensive line of products and services including the company's flagship Encompass® mortgage automation system, Contour™ and Genesis 2000® loan origination software, Encompass Websites™ for mortgage brokers, and Ellie Mae Docs™ services for document processing. Ellie Mae's ePASS® Network is the mortgage industry's online transaction platform enabling all mortgage companies in the United States to easily do business online with dozens of leading lenders and thousands of settlement service providers. Ellie Mae is based in Dublin, California. To learn more about Ellie Mae, visit www.elliemae.com or call (888) 955-9100.

About NYLX®
NYLX, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of LendingArt, Inc., is a leading provider of point-of-sale product eligibility and pricing technology systems for the mortgage industry. NYLX's proprietary best execution (BestX™) pricing models eliminate the complex and labor-intensive task of product decisioning and provide BestX™pricing to maximize profits on every transaction. NYLX's solution qualifies loan scenarios against lender guidelines and risk-based adjusters to display fully-adjusted rates and prices, and ranks the results for maximum returns. NYLX is the only system available which provides extensive Conventional, Subprime, A-Minus, Alt-A and FHA/VA pre-qualification and BestX™ pricing. For more information about NYLX, Inc. call 1-866-557-6959 or visit http://www.nylx.com.

About BrokerBuddy
BrokerBuddy, Inc. is a Florida corporation developing new technologies to assist mortgage professionals. BrokerBuddy's patent-pending process allows loan originators to instantly search for mortgage programs that meet the specific needs of their clients, including current rates, commissions, and information through an online service. For more information about the company, visit BrokerBuddy's website at http://www.BrokerBuddy.net

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Ellie Mae, Encompass, ePASS, and Genesis 2000 are registered trademarks, and Contour, Executive Websites, and Ellie Mae Docs are trademarks, of Ellie Mae, Inc. All rights reserved.