Teranet and Nationwide Appraisal Services announce partnership creating efficiencies in the appraisal and mortgage approval process

TORONTO, Nov. 22, 2012 /CNW/ - Leading electronic land registration and online property search firm Teranet, and appraisal management company NAS (Nationwide Appraisal Services), today announced Canada's first partnership between a collateral risk management division  and an appraisal management company. The aim of this partnership is to save time, enhance due diligence and mitigate fraud for Canada's mortgage lenders, insurers, brokers and other real estate professionals.

"Our partnership will provide a much needed dimension to our current scope of valuation services," noted Craig Rowsell, Executive Vice President with NAS. "Importantly, we will deliver a fully integrated service that utilizes key data to enhance the valuation decision and delivery process allowing clients to better mitigate risk in a cost effective manner."

The partnership delivers a comprehensive, reliable and cost effective valuation process that not only helps financial institutions mitigate risk through a more efficient underwriting process, but can also support adherence to OSFI guidelines and enhanced risk management.   Specific client solutions will include:

• Decision analytics to support collateral risk management and facilitate the mortgage process
• Collateral and fraud related data to support client's collateral decision criteria
• Risk management policy; and pre and post adjudication valuation tools.

"Heightened scrutiny by regulators, exacerbated by changes in the Canadian mortgage lending arena, requires an end-to-end solution," stated Eduardo Alzamora, Director, Financial Services, Teranet.  "Our partnership will deliver integrated options as well as new products to meet changing demands."

Through this partnership, Teranet and NAS will work together to develop new and enhance existing products and services that will now include the following:

Proprietary Property Report:
This report will provide detailed residential property information including property description and image; value range and market shift; potential market and neighbourhood risks.

NAS Intelligent Valuation Portal ("IVP"):
Teranet data will be used to enrich the NAS IVP decision tree which routes each deal request to the appropriate valuation product.

Teranet AVM Portfolio Update Service:
Teranet and NAS will provide periodic property value updates to end users.  Users can now elect to receive updated property value information on the properties for which they request valuation services.

NAS ViewPoint Report:
As part of the NAS ViewPoint Report, a subset of the Teranet data, such as appraised value and recent sale activity will be used to generate incremental flags shown on the report.

About Teranet:
Teranet is an international leader in electronic land registration and is the exclusive provider of online property search and registration in Ontario. The company developed, owns and operates Ontario's Electronic Land Registration System (ELRS) which is the means by which ownership of real property and interests on title are searched, recorded and transferred in the Province. In addition to the company's services for the Province of Ontario, Teranet offers a complementary suite of innovative electronic solutions to a network of more than 80,000 end users, 42 real estate boards and over 250 municipalities and institutions in the legal, real estate, government and financial markets.

For more information about Teranet, visit www.teranet.ca.

About NAS (Nationwide Appraisal Services Inc.):
NAS (Nationwide Appraisal Services) was established in 1996 as Canada's first Appraisal Management Company (AMC) and continues, through industry-leading technology and superior customer service to be the country's preferred source for real estate valuations. Since inception, NAS has been fulfilling full service, drive-by and desktop appraisals across Canada. NAS continues to develop new technology with a focus on innovation, efficiencies, quality customer service and enhanced risk management. NAS works with  Canada's most experienced and most trusted appraiser network. This, combined with superior technology and industry expertise allows users to seamlessly connect to collateral valuation services anywhere in Canada. NAS provides financial institutions, mortgage insurers and mortgage brokers a customizable, web-based appraisal management platform that offers fully automated appraisal solutions to create processes and cost efficiencies.  The NAS platform is utilized by over 50 different lenders and insurers including four of Canada's five major Banks.

For more information about NAS visit www.nas.com

SOURCE: Teranet