Tag Archives: ACES Audit Technology

2019 ARMCO QC Trends Report Indicates Overall Marked Improvement in Critical Defect Rate over 2018

DENVER, Colo. /ScoopCloud/ -- ACES Risk Management (ARMCO), the leading provider of enterprise quality management and control software for the financial services industry, announced the release of the quarterly ARMCO Mortgage QC Trends Report. The latest report, which provides nationwide loan quality findings based on data derived from ACES Audit Technology(TM) covers both the fourth quarter (Q4) and the 2019 calendar year (CY).

"Reduced interest rate volatility and declining interest rates over the course of the year created an environment in which lenders rode a sustained wave of refinances, increased their overall loan production and improved their profitability - all of which contributed to the improvements in loan quality in 2019," said ARMCO Executive Vice President Nick Volpe. "With the rate environment expected to remain unchanged throughout 2020, the loan quality levels observed in 2019 seem sustainable. However, this forecast does not and cannot account for the anomalies triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, lenders will need to keep a sharp eye out for negative spikes in their loan data as 2020 continues."

The report's noteworthy findings include:

* On a quarter-over-quarter basis, critical defect rates improved in the first three quarters of 2019 before reversing the decline and climbing in Q4 2019.
* Q4 2019 ended with a defect rate of 1.73%, an increase of 11% from Q3 2019.
* The share of conventional loans increased from 56.40% in CY 2018 to 61.99%, representing a nearly 6% increase.
* Purchase share fell 7.5% in CY 2019 as compared to CY 2018.
* Regulatory compliance issues were down 51% year-over-year, to a multi-year low of 5.17% of all critical defects.
* Loan Package/Documentation defects were volatile in CY 2019 but did post a 12% improvement compared with CY 2018.
* Income, Assets, and Credit (key qualification/underwriting criteria) related defects made up 53% of all critical defects in CY 2019, with Income and Credit increasing from the prior year, and Asset defects decreasing.
* Market stability contributed to an overall better 2019 for lending quality. However, these improvements will be severely tested as data comes in for the coming quarters as we start to see COVID's impact on mortgage lending.

The Q4/CY 2019 ARMCO Mortgage QC Industry Trends Report is based on nationwide post-closing quality control loan data from over 90,000 unique loans selected for random full-file reviews, as was captured by the company's ACES Analytics benchmarking software. Defects listed in the report are categorized using the Fannie Mae loan defect taxonomy.

"While 2019's critical defect rates represent a clear improvement over 2018 and suggest a continuation of that trend moving into 2020, the increase in forbearance requests, high unemployment rates and the potential for early payment defaults to spike later in the year will certainly put this prediction to the test," said ARMCO CEO Trevor Gauthier. "Recognizing the potential need for lenders to ramp up their EPD audit volume, ARMCO launched ACESXPRESS for Early Payment Defaults to better prepare our clients for this possibility and ensure they had a turnkey platform to help them maintain audit requirements and keep a vigilant eye on this potential source of risk."

Volpe will analyze the findings from the Q4/CY 2019 ARMCO Mortgage QC Industry Trends Report and offer insights into what lenders can expect in future quarters during a webinar titled, "Insights into Mortgage QC Trends - Past Highlights and Predictions for 2020," as part of its on-going QC NOW Web Series. To access the webinar recording, visit https://www.armco.us/learn/webinars/qc-now.

ARMCO Mortgage QC Industry Trends Reports are available for download, free of charge, at https://www.armco.us/learn/reports.

About ARMCO

ACES Risk Management (ARMCO) is the leading provider of enterprise quality management and control software for the financial services industry. More than half of the top 50 lenders and two of the top five U.S. commercial banks rely on ACES Audit Technology(TM) to improve audit throughput and quality while controlling costs. Unlike other quality control platforms, only ACES delivers Flexible Audit Technology, which gives independent mortgage lenders and financial institutions the ability to easily manage and customize ACES to meet their business needs without having to rely on IT or other outside resources. Using a customer-centric approach, ARMCO clients get responsive support and access to our experts to maximize their investment. For more information, visit www.armco.us or call 1-800-858-1598.

ACES Risk Management (ARMCO), the leading provider of enterprise quality management and control software for the financial services industry, announced the release of the quarterly ARMCO Mortgage QC Trends Report. The latest report, which provides nationwide loan quality findings based on data derived from ACES Audit Technology covers both the fourth quarter (Q4) and the 2019 calendar year (CY).

Related link: https://www.armco.us/

ARMCO Enhances Automation and Analysis in ACES Audit Technology

POMPANO BEACH, Fla. /ScoopCloud/ -- ACES Risk Management (ARMCO), the leading provider of enterprise financial risk mitigation software solutions, has announced several product enhancements that improve the mortgage quality control (QC) process for lenders and servicers using its auditing platform ACES Audit Technology(TM).

The two principal enhancements of this upgrade include identification of exception root causes and expanded auto-response capabilities for ACES. These functions use automation to significantly reduce the number of skilled labor hours it takes to achieve quality goals and identify areas that would benefit from proactive corrective actions.

"Identifying root causes of defects is critical to an effective mortgage QC process because it enables lenders to move from reactive corrections to proactive policy creation," said Phil McCall, president of ARMCO. "By automatically identifying root causes, ACES saves lenders months of reactive risk management, as well as the hours and hours of manual analysis it would normally take to identify the root cause."

ACES' enhanced auto-response capabilities automatically generate answers to questions and scenarios that trigger loan defects. Utilizing the multitude of data points within the ACES platform, ACES automatically conducts field-to-field comparisons of relevant loan data and can perform complex math equations, as is needed in cases involving loan eligibility and regulatory compliance. The ACES technology systematically determines the proper answer to the scenarios in question. This not only saves time, but also increases accuracy and consistency in the loan review process.

Among the numerous additional improvements are expanded ability to change exceptions settings in bulk, automated loan selection for internal audits, and expanded business day calculation features.

"Automation and analytics will play increasingly greater roles in the mortgage QC process, and as with this upgrade, ARMCO will be leading the way in bringing these advances to the mortgage industry," said Phil McCall, president of ARMCO. "Our clients rely on us to assure the highest quality through the greatest process efficiency. Our regular enhancements reinforce our dedication to reducing risk in the mortgage process by leveraging technology."

About ARMCO:

ARMCO - ACES Risk Management delivers web-based enterprise financial risk mitigation software solutions, as well as powerful data and analytics, to the nation's top mortgage lenders, servicers, investors and outsourcing professionals. A trusted partner devoted to client relationships, ARMCO offers best-in-class quality control and compliance software that provides U.S. banks, mortgage companies and service providers the technology and data needed to support loan integrity, meet regulatory requirements, reduce risk and drive positive business decisions.

ARMCO's flagship product, ACES Audit Technology(TM), is available at any point in the mortgage loan lifecycle, to any size lender, and is user-definable. ACES standardizes audit requirements, ties pre-funding reviews to post-closing quality control audits, enables seamless trend analysis, identifies credit, compliance and process deficiencies and helps create manageable action plans.

For more information, visit http://www.armco.us/ or call 1-800-858-1598.

ACES Risk Management (ARMCO), the leading provider of enterprise financial risk mitigation software solutions, has announced several product enhancements that improve the mortgage quality control (QC) process for lenders and servicers using its auditing platform ACES Audit Technology(TM).

Related link: http://www.armco.us/

ARMCO’s Q3 2017 Trends Report: Critical Loan Defect Rate Drops for First Time in 2017

POMPANO BEACH, Fla. /ScoopCloud/ -- ACES Risk Management (ARMCO), the leading provider of enterprise financial risk mitigation software solutions, announced the release of the ARMCO Mortgage QC Trends Report. The latest report is for the third quarter of 2017, which relays loan quality findings for mortgages reviewed by ACES Audit Technology(TM) between July 1, 2017 and September 30, 2017.

The report's noteworthy findings include:
* The Q3 2017 critical defect rate declined 6 percent from the previous quarter, revealing the first decrease in this rate for 2017
* The percentage of purchase transactions declined in Q3 2017
* Purchase transactions and FHA loans accounted for a disproportionately higher number of critical defects in Q3 2017.

"As the percentage of refis increased in the third quarter of 2017, we saw a drop in critical defect rates. That said, purchases still comprise the majority of mortgages originated, so critical defect activity still aligns with what you'd see in a purchase-driven market," said Phil McCall, president of ARMCO. "Lenders need to be mindful of the risks inherent with purchase transactions and take precautions, regardless of fluctuations in purchase/refi market share."

The ARMCO Mortgage QC Industry Trends Report is based on nationwide post-closing quality control loan data from just under 100,000 loans selected for random full-file reviews, as was captured by the company's ACES Analytics benchmarking software. Defects listed in the report are categorized using the Fannie Mae loan defect taxonomy.

Each ARMCO Mortgage QC Industry Trends report includes easy-to-read charts and graphs, a summary that outlines ARMCO's overall findings, a breakdown of defect rates for each Fannie Mae loan defect category, and a short conclusion. The current and previous reports also contain an analysis of the top credit-related critical defects, which is now a regular feature of the report. ARMCO issues a one-year analysis for the calendar year with each fourth quarter Mortgage QC Industry Trends Report.

To obtain a copy of the report, please visit https://www.armco.us/knowledge/mortgage-qc-industry-report-2017-q3

About ARMCO:
ARMCO - ACES Risk Management delivers web-based audit technology solutions, as well as powerful data and analytics, to the nation's top mortgage lenders, servicers, investors and outsourcing professionals. A trusted partner devoted to client relationships, ARMCO offers best-in-class quality control and compliance software that provides U.S. banks, mortgage companies and service providers the technology and data needed to support loan integrity, meet regulatory requirements, reduce risk and drive positive business decisions. ARMCO's flagship product, ACES Audit Technology(TM), is available at any point in the mortgage loan lifecycle, to any size lender, and is user-definable. ACES standardizes audit requirements, ties pre-funding reviews to post-closing quality control audits, enables seamless trend analysis, identifies credit, compliance and process deficiencies and helps create manageable action plans.

For more information, visit http://www.armco.us/ or call 1-800-858-1598.

ACES Risk Management (ARMCO), the leading provider of enterprise financial risk mitigation software solutions, announced the release of the ARMCO Mortgage QC Trends Report. The latest report is for the third quarter of 2017, which relays loan quality findings for mortgages reviewed by ACES Audit Technology between July 1, 2017 and September 30, 2017.

Related link: http://www.armco.us/

ARMCO Named a ‘Top 100 Mortgage Employer’ by National Mortgage Professional Magazine for Second Consecutive Year

POMPANO BEACH, Fla. /ScoopCloud/ -- ACES Risk Management (ARMCO), the leading provider of financial quality control and compliance software ACES Audit Technology(TM), announced that was named among National Mortgage Professional (NMP) magazine's annual Top 100 Mortgage Employers list for 2018. This is the second consecutive year the company has been recognized with this distinction.

"ARMCO's strives for top quality, in both our technology and service. This is all based on our dedicated and highly skilled staff," said Phil McCall, President of ARMCO. "We are serious about maintaining a culture that attracts the best people, and it's very rewarding to be named a top mortgage employer for the second consecutive year by National Mortgage Professional."

The annual award rankings are based on the magazine's proprietary Mortgage Company Employer Score (MECS). The MECS weighs and scores various areas in a company to arrive at the list each year. A polling of NMP subscribers is used with the following criteria: corporate culture; compensation; day-to-day management; internal communications; marketing; training; resources; long-term strategy; ingenuity; speed; technology; and industry participation.

NMP is one of the mortgage industry's leading go-to sources for extensive news coverage for mortgages, origination, compliance, secondary marketing, servicing, settlement, technology, trending, and more.

About ARMCO:

ARMCO - ACES Risk Management delivers web-based audit technology solutions, as well as powerful data and analytics, to the nation's top mortgage lenders, servicers, investors and outsourcing professionals. A trusted partner devoted to client relationships, ARMCO offers best-in-class quality control and compliance software that provides U.S. banks, mortgage companies and service providers the technology and data needed to support loan integrity, meet regulatory requirements, reduce risk and drive positive business decisions.

ARMCO's flagship product, ACES Audit Technology(TM), is available at any point in the mortgage loan lifecycle, to any size lender, and is user-definable. ACES standardizes audit requirements, ties pre-funding reviews to post-closing quality control audits, enables seamless trend analysis, identifies credit, compliance and process deficiencies and helps create manageable action plans.

For more information, visit http://www.armco.us/ or call 1-800-858-1598.

ACES Risk Management (ARMCO), the leading provider of financial quality control and compliance software ACES Audit Technology, announced that was named among National Mortgage Professional (NMP) magazine's annual Top 100 Mortgage Employers list for 2018. This is the second consecutive year the company has been recognized with this distinction.

Related link: http://www.armco.us/

ARMCO Announces New Loan Data Validation Tools

POMPANO BEACH, Fla. /ScoopCloud/ -- ACES Risk Management (ARMCO), the leading provider of financial quality control and compliance software ACES Audit Technology(TM), has announced the release of a new technology for mortgage lenders and servicers that improves data validation in the QC process.

ARMCO's new data validation tool is available through the most recent ACES upgrade, which was released on December 9, 2017. This upgrade's principal enhancement is advanced process automation functionality that enables ACES to automatically identify missing data within the loan file. Data integrity issues are one of the top causes of critical defects, according to research released in the most recent ARMCO Mortgage QC Industry Trends Report. With the system's new advanced automation functionality, ACES now fulfills an essential function for avoiding data validation errors.

Introducing this upgraded level of process automation is part of ARMCO's strategy to continue exploiting and maximizing process automation to turn one of the most labor intensive and time-consuming tasks into an entirely automated process within the ACES platform, and impart the highest levels of thoroughness, reliability and efficiency in the QC process.

"We created this feature to help our clients relieve a critical pain point of validating system data. Data integrity issues compromise loan quality, create extra work, and most importantly, increase lenders' risk when they're not caught and corrected," said Phil McCall, president of ARMCO. "Manually searching for data related errors can be extremely difficult given the amount of data contained in a loan file. That's why automation stands to make a major difference in lenders' success in identifying and correcting one of the most frequent causes of critical defects."

About ARMCO:
ARMCO - ACES Risk Management delivers web-based audit technology solutions, as well as powerful data and analytics, to the nation's top mortgage lenders, servicers, investors and outsourcing professionals. A trusted partner devoted to client relationships, ARMCO offers best-in-class quality control and compliance software that provides U.S. banks, mortgage companies and service providers the technology and data needed to support loan integrity, meet regulatory requirements, reduce risk and drive positive business decisions.

ARMCO's flagship product, ACES Audit Technology(TM), is available at any point in the mortgage loan lifecycle, to any size lender, and is user-definable. ACES standardizes audit requirements, ties pre-funding reviews to post-closing quality control audits, enables seamless trend analysis, identifies credit, compliance and process deficiencies and helps create manageable action plans.

For more information, visit http://www.armco.us/ or call 1-800-858-1598.

ACES Risk Management (ARMCO), the leading provider of financial quality control and compliance software ACES Audit Technology(TM), has announced the release of a new technology for mortgage lenders and servicers that improves data validation in the QC process.

Related link: http://www.armco.us/

ARMCO Promotes COO Phil McCall to President

POMPANO BEACH, Fla. /ScoopCloud/ -- ACES Risk Management (ARMCO), the leading provider of financial quality control and compliance software ACES Audit Technology(TM), announced that chief operating officer Phil McCall has been promoted to company president. In his new role, McCall will oversee all operations for the company, including the expansion of the company's award-winning ACES Audit Technology platform.

McCall, who has been with the company since 2014, is a respected subject matter expert in the field of mortgage quality control and championed the development and implementation of ARMCO's ACES Analytics, the industry's first loan quality control benchmarking software and the technology behind ARMCO's Mortgage QC Industry Trends Report.

"ACES Analytics and the Mortgage QC Industry Trends Report have made a big impact in our growth, visibility and standing in the industry over the past few years," said Avi Naider, ARMCO's CEO. "Phil's vision for technology and mortgage quality control is a key component of our growth over the next several years. We anticipate the company will continue to benefit from his vision in his role as president of ARMCO."

Phil McCall has been in the mortgage industry for more than 25 years and has held numerous executive positions with both mortgage lenders and mortgage technology providers. In the past year, he received two top industry awards: HousingWire magazine's HW Vanguard Award, which the magazine states "recognizes C-level and business unit executives who have become leaders in their respective fields within housing and mortgage finance - those whose leadership is moving markets forward," and the 2017 Tech All-Star Award by the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA), which recognizes an individual who has made significant and outstanding contributions in mortgage technology. McCall is a key contributor to several mortgage quality and auditing technologies, is a member of MBA's Fraud Issues Committee and has been sought out as a mortgage fraud subject matter expert by multiple law enforcement agencies.

"I'm truly excited to be a part of an organization like ARMCO that shares my commitment to technology innovation and my passion for real change," said McCall. "It's especially important today, as the industry drives its focus even more toward loan quality and data integrity. I'm looking forward to the great things we will accomplish as we grow, and the positive changes we'll make for lenders and the industry as a whole."

About ARMCO:
ARMCO - ACES Risk Management delivers web-based audit technology solutions, as well as powerful data and analytics, to the nation's top mortgage lenders, servicers, investors and outsourcing professionals. A trusted partner devoted to client relationships, ARMCO offers best-in-class quality control and compliance software that provides U.S. banks, mortgage companies and service providers the technology and data needed to support loan integrity, meet regulatory requirements, reduce risk and drive positive business decisions. ARMCO's flagship product, ACES Audit Technology(TM), is available at any point in the mortgage loan lifecycle, to any size lender, and is user-definable.

ACES standardizes audit requirements, ties pre-funding reviews to post-closing quality control audits, enables seamless trend analysis, identifies credit, compliance and process deficiencies and helps create manageable action plans. For more information, visit http://www.armco.us/ or call 1-800-858-1598.

ACES Risk Management (ARMCO), the leading provider of financial quality control and compliance software ACES Audit Technology(TM), announced that chief operating officer Phil McCall has been promoted to company president. In his new role, McCall will oversee all operations for the company, including the expansion of the company's award-winning ACES Audit Technology platform.

Related link: http://www.armco.us/

ARMCO Adds New Capabilities to its ACES Audit Technology, Empowering Organizations to Swiftly Adhere to Changing Servicing Compliance Rules

GRAPEVINE, Texas /ScoopCloud/ -- MBA National Mortgage Servicing Conference & Exposition - ACES Risk Management (ARMCO), the leading provider of financial quality control and compliance software, announced at the MBA's annual servicing conference being held at the Gaylord Texan Hotel, that it has added to and enhanced business user-friendly configuration functionality to its award-winning ACES Audit Technology(TM) solution.

The additions enable servicers to standardize and easily modify compliance-critical questionnaires to follow when interfacing with borrowers amid the introduction of changing rules that are specific to servicing entities.

When interacting with borrowers, there are a myriad of rules that servicers must follow on both state and federal levels throughout the lifecycle of the servicing process. The new additions made to ARMCO's ACES Audit Technology puts the ability to create and make changes to compliance questionnaires directly in the hands of business people. Updated questionnaires can quickly be incorporated into the servicer's internal policies and procedures that guide staff with how and when to communicate with borrowers and proceed accordingly.

"Now more than ever, servicers face an influx of new compliance rules and regulations from federal, state and GSE requirements that they must adhere to," said Phil McCall, COO of ARMCO. "Due to an increasing spotlight placed on servicers, we enhanced the ease of configuration and self-sufficient change management capability to our platform, which now provides servicers with complete control to make changes in real-time to comply with the complexity of new rules."

Some examples that ACES Audit Technology helps with include general servicing functions (correspondence/complaints, credit reporting, fees, etc.); specialty servicing functions (adjustable rate mortgages, assumptions, bankruptcy, specialty HUD products, etc.); and default servicing functions (collections, loss mitigation, foreclosures, claims, etc.).

ARMCO's ACES questionnaires are completely customizable and can leverage and modify existing template questionnaires that ARMCO has in its library of forms for servicers. ARMCO maintains all relevant state and Federal compliance rules for clients, and then empowers them with the interface to makes changes to their own rules and policies.

A comprehensive suite of new USDA program specific questions were also added to the servicing questionnaires. There is a wide array of requirements covered; including, but not limited to escrow administration of the annual fee, construction processing/repair escrows, and default processing. Clients can easily review and analyze question content additions and/or changes, discuss implementation needs with QC and business staff, and maintain questionnaire versioning records that can be provided on demand in the event of an external regulatory audit.

ARMCO will be unveiling the added functionality to its ACES Audit Technology at the MBA Servicing Conference from Feb. 14 - 17, 2017 in Grapeview, Texas at the Gaylord Texan Hotel in booth number 1010. The company can be contacted at sales@armco.us for a demo.

About ARMCO:

ARMCO - ACES Risk Management delivers web-based audit technology solutions, as well as powerful data and analytics, to the nation's top mortgage lenders, servicers, investors and outsourcing professionals. A trusted partner devoted to client relationships, ARMCO offers best-in-class quality control and compliance software that provides U.S. banks, mortgage companies and service providers the technology and data needed to support loan integrity, meet regulatory requirements, reduce risk and drive positive business decisions.

ARMCO's flagship product, ACES Audit Technology(TM), is available at any point in the mortgage loan lifecycle, to any size lender, and is user-definable. ACES standardizes audit requirements, ties pre-funding reviews to post-closing quality control audits, enables seamless trend analysis, identifies credit, compliance and process deficiencies and helps create manageable action plans. For more information, visit http://www.armco.us/ or call 1-800-858-1598.

MEDIA CONTACT:
Joe Bowerbank
Profundity Communications, Inc.
949-378-9685
jbowerbank@profunditymarketing.com

MBA National Mortgage Servicing Conference & Exposition - ACES Risk Management (ARMCO), the leading provider of financial quality control and compliance software, announced at the MBA's annual servicing conference being held at the Gaylord Texan Hotel, that it has added to and enhanced business user-friendly configuration functionality to its award-winning ACES Audit Technology(TM) solution.