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Raymond James Bank will use Intercontinental Exchange’s (ICE) Encompass mortgage platform to provide home loans through its retail and correspondent lending channels, expanding the menu of services it relies on ICE for.
The bank — an affiliate of investment bank and financial services company Raymond James Financial — already uses ICE Data Services and other ICE solutions, including the Mortgage Electronic Registration System (MERS), “making the interconnectivity of Encompass a natural fit,” ICE said in announcing the Encompass deal Tuesday.
Tim Bowler
ICE Mortgage Technology President Tim Bowler said Raymond James Bank “undertook a comprehensive review of several competing vendor solutions” before settling on Encompass.
“Our significant investments in mortgage technology and data are allowing us to automate and accelerate elements of the process from start to finish — all to the benefit of the American home buyer or owner,” Bowler said in a statement.
St. Petersburg, Florida-based Raymond James Bank employs 40 mortgage loan originators who offer a full suite of mortgage loans in all 50 states, according to records maintained by the Nationwide Mortgage Licensing System and Registry.
It’s the second Encompass deal ICE has announced this month, following on the heels of a Jan. 16 announcement that a former client, Carrington Mortgage Services LLC, was returning to the fold.
Re-signing Carrington Mortgage Services was an even bigger coup, as the Anaheim, California-based lender sponsors 280 mortgage loan originators working out of 16 branch locations nationwide, according to NMLS records.
Bruce Rose
“We’ve watched as ICE has made significant investments in Encompass over the years,” The Carrington Companies founder and CEO Bruce Rose said in a statement. “As we saw the end-to-end solution they were building take shape, it became clear to us that our mortgage operations would be well-served by ICE’s new, more expansive and integrated lending platform.”
In the process of closing an $11.9 billion merger with Black Knight last year, ICE divested itself of Black Knight’s Empower loan origination system and Optimal Blue mortgage pricing business in order to satisfy the concerns of antitrust regulators.
Empower and Optimal Blue now operate within Constellation Software’s Perseus Group, which has rebranded Black Knight Origination Technologies LLC as Dark Matter Technologies. Dark Matter remains based in Jacksonville, Florida, with 12-year Black Knight veteran Rich Gagliano serving as the company’s CEO.
Last week Dark Matter announced a new automated workflow for Empower developed in partnership with Informative Research to utilize rent payment history now available in Fannie Mae’s Desktop Underwriter. The new workflow should help lenders approve more borrowers who have a history of consecutive rent payments, the company said.
Rich Gagliano
“This is a prime use case of how business process automation can create value not only for lenders but for borrowers as well,” Gagliano said in a statement. “Our task-based orchestration engine allows lenders to improve pull-through for borrowers with nontraditional credit references without burdening loan officers or processors.”
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