WASHINGTON, April 20, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Fannie Mae (OTC Bulletin Board: FNMA) today announced it has integrated Collateral Underwriter™ (CU) with the industry leading Desktop Underwriter^® (DU) automated underwriting system and EarlyCheck™, the company's pre-delivery loan eligibility and data evaluation tool.  This integration helps lenders to more effectively manage risk, underwrite strong loans and build their businesses confidently and efficiently.  Collateral Underwriter is Fannie Mae's proprietary appraisal analysis application, providing lenders access to analytics as well as underlying appraisal, public records and other data when evaluating the risk on an appraisal.  CU is available at no charge to lenders.

"This integration is the next step in our efforts to make it easier to work with Fannie Mae by helping lenders to efficiently manage risk and build strong, profitable businesses," said Marianne Sullivan, Fannie Mae's Senior Vice President for Single Family Business Capabilities. "DU, CU and EarlyCheck are foundational tools for a strong housing finance system going forward."

Collateral Underwriter was announced by Fannie Mae in October 2014, and became available to lenders beginning January 26, 2015.  So far, nearly 800 lenders have registered to use the tool to manage risk and make their appraisal review processes more efficient.

"Incorporating certain critical information and findings from Collateral Underwriter onto the DU Findings report is a logical next step," said David Keeling, Senior Vice President and Mortgage Director, First Citizens Bank.  "Underwriters will now be able to obtain a more thorough and holistic risk profile of the overall transaction through the DU Findings report.  We think that makes sense and will help underwriters in their loan decisions while creating additional efficiencies."

"The collateral information that CU provides is invaluable and simply staggering," said Breck Tyler, Executive Vice President, Trustmark Mortgage Services. "CU has aided in providing important comparable data that was previously unavailable or very difficult to get.  CU messages in DU will help streamline appraisal review and make the underwriting of an appraisal a much more informed process."

With this integration, the Collateral Underwriter risk score, flags and messages for appraisals submitted to Fannie Mae through the Uniform Collateral Data Portal^® will be available for display in DU and EarlyCheck.  This will provide a more holistic view of risk on a loan across multiple applications, enabling lenders to better address potential issues prior to loan delivery.  Lenders can use the CU risk score to segment appraisals by risk profile, resulting in more efficient resource allocation, workflow management and collateral risk management processes.

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SOURCE Fannie Mae

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