Finance

Mortgage and Finance News: (JACKSONVILLE, Fla.) Dark Matter Technologies (Dark Matter®), an innovative leader in mortgage technology, today announced continued client momentum that includes a multi-year renewal with Arbor Bank and a new client signing with Covey Financial, as well as tighter integration of its Elevate℠ Loan Servicing Solution (Elevate) and the Empower® loan origination system (LOS).

Mortgage and Finance News: (SAN DIEGO, Calif.) The Mortgage Collaborative (TMC), the nation's leading independent cooperative network for mortgage lenders, today released results from the latest Pulse of the Network survey, along with an analysis examining how mortgage lenders are prioritizing technology, operational efficiency, and growth strategies amid continued market pressure.

Mortgage and Finance News: (HOUSTON, Texas) NotaryCam®, a Stewart-owned company and leading remote online notarization (RON) provider for real estate and legal transactions, announced a standout year in 2025, having reached more than 2 million successful notarizations to date, including more than 238,000 notarizations completed this year. The company also doubled both its credit card transaction volume and the number of servicers using loss mitigation-related RON transactions through its real estate vertical, exemplifying growing industry adoption of digital solutions.

Mortgage and Finance News: (TROY, Mich.) Class Valuation, a leading real estate appraisal management company (AMC), announced today that Chris Flynn has been appointed chief operating officer. Flynn joined Class Valuation in April 2025 as chief data officer and has since played a central role in advancing the company's strategic, operational and product initiatives.

Mortgage and Finance News: (TORRANCE, Calif.) DocMagic, Inc., today announced that two of its executives have been elected to help lead Community of Practice (CoP) workgroups within the Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization (MISMO) for the 2026-2027 term. Chief eServices Executive Brian D. Pannell will serve as vice chair of MISMO's Digital Interoperability CoP, and Director of Integration and Technical Services David Garrett will serve as vice chair of the eMortgage CoP.

Mortgage and Finance News: (DENVER, Colo.) ACES Quality Management® (ACES), the leading provider of enterprise quality management and control software for the financial services industry, today announced its acquisition of Basecap Analytics, an established enterprise data quality platform trusted by leading financial institutions. The acquisition enhances ACES' ability to deliver end-to-end quality management by expanding its platform to include enterprise-wide data quality automation.

Mortgage and Finance News: (NEW YORK, N.Y.) Vertyx, a provider of intelligent mortgage servicing technology built for enhanced portfolio performance, today announced the release of Borrower Relationship Management, a new capability within its end-to-end mortgage servicing platform designed to help servicers and investors identify retention and recapture opportunities earlier, deliver timely outreach through borrower channels and measure engagement.

Mortgage and Finance News: (ATLANTA, Ga.) Down Payment Resource (DPR), the housing industry authority on homeownership program data and solutions, today released its Q4 2025 Homeownership Program Index (HPI) report, identifying 2,619 programs. While the total count is five programs fewer than the prior quarter, it marked a 6% increase from a year earlier, rising from 2,466 programs in Q4 2024. The year-over-year (YoY) growth reflects continued expansion and refinement of program options amid persistent housing affordability challenges across much of the country.

Mortgage and Finance News: (GARDEN GROVE, Calif.) Informative Research (IR), a leading technology provider of data-driven credit and verification solutions for the lending industry, today announced that its work in 2025 has introduced significant platform enhancements and expanded its integration ecosystem across credit and verification services. The company introduced new credit and verification capabilities, added multiple data and payroll partners, and enhanced automation through its unified platform.

Mortgage and Finance News: (TROY, Mich.) Class Valuation, a leading real estate appraisal management company (AMC), announced today that Tanya Wright has joined the company as Executive Vice President of Third-Party Origination (TPO) and Distributed Retail. Wright will serve on Class Valuation's Operations Leadership Team and oversee strategy, operations and client success for the company's broker and distributed retail channels.

Mortgage and Finance News: (LAKE ZURICH, Ill.) Dovenmuehle Mortgage, Inc. (Dovenmuehle), a leading residential mortgage subservicer, announced today that Moody's Investors Service ("Moody's") has affirmed its servicer quality (SQ) assessment as a servicer of prime residential mortgage loans at SQ2-. Moody's assessment highlights Dovenmuehle's strong performance and disciplined execution across key areas of mortgage servicing.

Mortgage and Finance News: (BRENTWOOD, Tenn.) Franklin Madison is thrilled to announce the addition of Farah Rehman as Group Vice President, Revenue Execution. With 24 years of experience spanning product development, sales, marketing, and strategy, Farah brings a distinguished track record of helping build and scale insurance businesses to the executive leadership team.

Mortgage and Finance News: (AUSTIN, Texas) FirstClose™, a leading fintech provider of data and workflow solutions for mortgage and home equity lenders nationwide, today announced 2025 results showing faster closings and measurable efficiency gains as lenders used its technology to meet rising home equity demand in a high-interest-rate environment. The company reduced closing timelines, expanded key integrations and strengthened its operating foundation to support scalable growth in 2026.

Mortgage and Finance News: (WARRENVILLE, Ill.) Raymond James Financial Services is proud to announce that Legacy Wealth Advisors has once again been named to the Forbes Best-in-State Wealth Management Teams list for 2026, marking four consecutive years of recognition in this prestigious national ranking. Legacy Wealth Advisors is known for its collaborative approach, ensuring clients benefit from the collective expertise of the entire team.

Mortgage and Finance News: (DENVER, Colo.) ACES Quality Management® (ACES), the leading provider of enterprise quality management and control software for the financial services industry, continued to support its customers through a challenging mortgage market in 2025 by sustaining audit scale, advancing AI-driven quality control innovation and delivering trusted regulatory and defect trend insight.

Mortgage and Finance News: (PLANO, Texas) Optimal Blue today released its December 2025 Market Advantage mortgage data report, showing that mortgage rate-lock activity ended the year on a firm footing, bucking typical holiday-driven seasonality. Total lock volume rose 2% month over month (MoM) from November and finished 30% higher year over year (YoY), driven primarily by rate-and-term refinances, which climbed 13% from November and more than 170% compared with December 2024.

Mortgage and Finance News: (SEATTLE, Wash.) Friday Harbor, an AI-powered platform that helps loan officers assemble complete and compliant loan files in real time, today announced the integration of its AI Originator Assistant with Fannie Mae's Income Calculator. The new connection enables lenders to instantly calculate qualifying income for borrowers with self-employment or rental income and gain enforcement relief from representations and warranties on the income calculation for conventional loans.

Mortgage and Finance News: (LAKE ZURICH, Ill.) Dovenmuehle Mortgage, Inc. (DMI), a leading mortgage subservicing company, announced today that it has received the ISO/IEC 27001 certification from NSF International Strategic Registrations (NSF-ISR), an NSF company. ISO/IEC 27001 defines global benchmarks for information security management systems (ISMS).

Mortgage and Finance News: (CLEVELAND, Ohio) Top mortgage industry webcast The Big Picture, broadcast live every Thursday at 3 p.m. ET, announced a January slate of guests offering timely perspectives on how to navigate the regulatory landscape ahead, scale mortgage production while developing the next generation of originators, execute with discipline in volatile markets and expand access to homeownership in new ways.

Mortgage and Finance News: (SAN DIEGO, Calif.) The Mortgage Collaborative (TMC), the nation's only independent, wholly-owned mortgage lending cooperative, today announced the appointment of Rich Swerbinsky as Strategic Advisor to the CEO & President and Heidi Belnay as Senior Advisor for Business Development. These strategic additions to the leadership team position TMC for accelerated growth and continued industry impact in 2026 and beyond.

Mortgage and Finance News: (VALENCIA, Calif.) IRS Solutions® announces today that it has completed the SOC 2® examination. As tax professionals face growing security expectations, technology providers must prove accountability and consistency in how they handle data. A recently completed SOC 2® examination provides independent validation that IRS Solutions systems maintain secure, reliable, and confidential operations.

Mortgage and Finance News: (SAN DIEGO, Calif.) The Mortgage Collaborative (TMC), the nation's leading independent cooperative network for mortgage lenders, today announced it will host the inaugural ACT Technology Summit, short for Accelerator and Collaborative Transformation, a two-day standalone mortgage technology competition and showcase Aug. 12-13 at The Highlands Hotel in Dallas.

Mortgage and Finance News: (BUFFALO, N.Y.) LenderLogix, a leading provider of mortgage point-of-sale and automation software for banks, credit unions, independent mortgage banks, and brokers, today announced LiteSpeed eSign, a fully native eSignature experience built into the LiteSpeed point of sale (POS) platform. Serving both sides of the mortgage process, LiteSpeed eSign enables lenders to tag and request documents for electronic signatures directly in Encompass without the need to switch platforms.

Mortgage and Finance News: (SAN DIEGO, Calif.) The Mortgage Collaborative (TMC), the nation's leading independent cooperative network for mortgage lenders, today announced the launch of an individual subscription membership option that expands access to its network for mortgage professionals seeking connection, insight and peer engagement outside a traditional lender membership.

Mortgage and Finance News: (DENVER, Colo.) ACES Quality Management#xae; (ACES), the leading provider of enterprise quality management and control software for the financial services industry, today announced the general availability of its latest innovation, ACES DATABRIDGE, which makes ACES customer data fully portable.

Mortgage and Finance News: (AUSTIN, Texas) FirstClose™, a leading fintech provider of data and workflow solutions for mortgage and home equity lenders nationwide, announced today a new partnership with Stewart Lender Services, a division of Stewart Information Services Corporation (NYSE: STC), that enhances FirstClose's Order Management System (OMS) with expanded home equity fulfillment capabilities.

Mortgage and Finance News: (TROY, Mich.) Class Valuation, a leading real estate appraisal management company (AMC), announced today that Daniel A. Busch has joined the company as its chief financial officer (CFO). Busch brings more than two decades of financial leadership experience to the role, including extensive work in private equity environments, business transformation and data-driven operational performance.

Mortgage and Finance News: (PLANO, Texas) Optimal Blue today released its November 2025 Market Advantage mortgage data report, which found that total mortgage rate-lock activity declined with normal late fall seasonality, yet still marked the strongest November in four years. Total lock volume fell 25% month over month (MoM) from October but remained up 17% year over year (YoY), buoyed by historically strong refinance demand and mortgage rates holding near 6%.

Mortgage and Finance News: (PLANO, Texas) Optimal Blue today announced the promotion of Lanny Rogers III, CPA, to chief financial officer (CFO) and Jeremy Moreno to chief revenue officer (CRO). Their combined experience and long track records of leadership position the company to advance its next stage of growth and client success with a dedicated financial strategy function and strengthened revenue oversight.

Mortgage and Finance News: (GARDEN GROVE, Calif.) Informative Research (IR), a leading technology provider of data-driven credit and verification solutions for the lending industry, today announced that Software Developer Sriranjini "Sri" Prabhakara has been named to National Mortgage Professional Magazine's 2025 40 Under 40 list. The annual recognition highlights emerging professionals whose work is helping shape the future of the mortgage sector.