eMortgages are legally binding, paperless mortgages, from loan application to investor delivery.

The law supports them

New laws in the industry have paved the way for this electronic revolution, which will eventually eliminate paper forms completely. The passage of the Federal Electronic Signatures Act (E-SIGN) in 2000, and the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act (UETA) opened the door to electronic commerce in the banking and mortgage industries. Under these new laws, electronic signatures may be used wherever existing law states that a document must be signed. eSignatures hold the same legal weight as "wet" signatures.

The industry encourages them

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) formed the Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization (MISMO) in January 2000. MISMO has created a set of data exchange standards and is working on additional standards. The standard format for electronic closing documents has been dubbed SMART (Securable, Manageable, Archivable, Retrievable, and Transferable) document specification.

The technology is ready for them

Documents using XHTML and XML fulfill the requirements of SMART Docs. The combined use of these two programming languages provides the tightest possible integration between data and the representation of that data on a form or image. As a result, information is easily readable and transferable in its raw form.

What are the primary benefits?

Benefits include lower operational costs, reduced errors and omissions, greater control and increased accuracy through electronic validation and secure transfer of data and documents. eMortgages deliver significant improvements in efficiency and profitability over traditional loan closing process with one of the greatest benefits being the speed at which processes can be completed.

eMortgages enable lenders and their customers to:

• Streamline and automate paper processes, from loan application and processing, to closing and investor delivery

• Provide electronic documents that are secure, easily stored and retrieved, portable and legally binding

• Save at least $125-$180 per loan

• Cut processing time by over 50 percent

• Improve accuracy of all documents

• Eliminate surprises and redundancy at all stages in the loan process

• Do it right the first and every time

eMortgage Alliance Members

The eMortgage Alliance represents a consortium of companies that are collaborating to deliver a more accurate, efficient way of doing business. Each member offers critical technology in its own respective category for eMortgages. Collectively or independently, members help deliver a paperless process to dramatically reduce the review, validation, re-keying and re-validation of information throughout the mortgage process, streamlining the review and data entry processes throughout the mortgage operation. Members of the eMortgage Alliance support the current MISMO standards and are ready for deployment today.