TACOMA, Wash. – Harborstone Credit Union is now putting itsmortgage loan documents on the Web, becoming one of the firstcredit unions to use the eLynx Web Posting Service (WPS) toelectronically deliver and track closing documents. “Formerly, mostof our first mortgage loan documents were printed in-house andeither mailed or sent by messenger to an escrow company for signingby the members. With eLynx, we can send the documentselectronically to the escrow, no matter how far it is from thecredit union,” said Donna Meyerhoff, vice president of mortgageservices at $550 million Harborstone. Customers of Cincinnati-basedeLynx Ltd. currently account for more than 30% of all loanoriginations, according to company President Phil Huff, who sayseLynx began focusing on the credit union market about a year agoand now has “a handful” using his firm's solutions. WPS interfaceswith the Printstream printer control language, an industry standarddeveloped years ago by Hewlett-Packard, to allow users to postdocuments on a secured Web site by simply choosing that option asthey would a standard printer. Communications between the site andthe users – including members, the credit union and others involvedin the mortgage process – take place through a virtual privatenetwork (VPN) or standard Internet connections and the company'sdocument/data hubs in Chicago and Atlanta, Huff says. Documentprivacy is ensured by using a “very secure and specificcommunications protocol” from RemoteWare and a virtual firewall,Huff says. He also claims his company's solution to be the first“electronic document delivery system that can be utilizedcompany-wide and is universally compatible with anydocument-origination application, operating on any platform, fromcharacter-based legacy systems to Windows-based desktops.”Meyerhoff says Harborstone CU does about $100 million in mortgagevolume a year and has had no major problems in integrating theWeb-posting service with its existing Fiserv Unifi Pro processingsolution. Meyerhoff also says staffers found eLynx WPS “relativelysimple to learn, since it interfaces with our loan originationsystem and functions essentially as an alternate print location.Our loan processors can direct the document sets to be sent to anyescrow that we do business with.” The CU now is benefiting fromfaster delivery of loan documents and the ability to revise andre-transmit documents instantly, the mortgage services vicepresident says. Huff says the cost of implementing WPS is “veryreasonable, and many times there is no upfront cost if you're usinga platform we're familiar with. Ongoing transaction volumes arebased on volume and range generally from $2.25 to $5 per delivery.”He says that compares favorably to the costs of paper and printers,Federal Express or other shipping and personnel time involved indoing the processing. “You also have extra hours to prepare allthose documents before a closing occurs, giving you much moreflexibility and a competitive advantage,” the eLynx president says.Other company services include document delivery status alerts andelectronic signatures, which provide the ability to do such thingsonline as open up new accounts and apply for loans, Huff says.Meyerhoff says Harborstone CU has no current plans to deployelectronic signatures but adds, “As the technology and recordingstatus is perfected, I'm sure we will.” -

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