Does innovation in lending always means building something new? MISMO’s President Brian Vieaux challenges that familiar assumption, instead, he argues that some of the industry's greatest opportunities lie in eliminating outdated processes that add friction without adding value. Read why the future of mortgage may depend as much on what the industry chooses to let go of as on what it chooses to build next. This kind of forward thinking leads directly to strategy, and tomorrow, Rick Scherer, CMB, Chief Strategy Officer at NewFed Mortgage Corp., sponsored by Lenders One, discusses this kind of thinking on Mortgage Matters at 11AM PT. (Today’s podcast can be found here. This week’s ‘casts are sponsored by Experian Verify, providing mortgage lenders with automated income, employment, identity, and asset verification solutions that help accelerate underwriting while reducing fraud risk and manual documentation. Today’s has an interview with PMSI’s John Walsh on the mortgage investor reporting and accounting space.)
Lender and Broker Software, Products, and Services
“NMBNOW®, a recognized innovator in Non‑QM lending, is expanding into the wholesale lending market to give brokers the same dedicated, individualized service that fuels our retail success. Benefit from concierge support for scenarios, pricing, and underwriting—delivering fast decisions and tailored solutions for complex borrowers. Close more loans with flexible Non‑QM guidelines, seasoned underwriting, fast turn times, and competitive pricing. We handle diverse files, from DSCR, alt‑doc, and full‑doc loans (including those with recent housing or credit events) to ITIN borrowers and foreign nationals. Learn more and get approved. Contact: Joe Villani, EVP, TPO Lending.”
What if you could modernize execution without rebuilding your technology stack? JazzX AI was built for exactly that purpose. Rather than replacing your LOS, CRM, document systems, pricing engines, verification providers, or third-party services, JazzX sits above them as a System of Intelligence: An AI-native execution layer that orchestrates work across the mortgage lifecycle while preserving the systems you've already invested in. The result is a modern mortgage operation that becomes more adaptive, intelligent, and efficient without the cost, risk, and disruption of rip-and-replace initiatives. Want to see it in action? Book a demo with our team.
FraudGuard®: Experience Matters. Innovation Endures. Mortgage fraud continues to evolve, but one principle remains constant: effective prevention is built on experience and sustained through innovation. For more than two decades, FraudGuard from First American Data & Analytics has helped lenders identify and mitigate fraud risk before closing. Powered by the National Fraud Protection Database, more than 30 million loans contributed by over 1,100 lenders, along with FLEX consortium intelligence, property data, occupancy analytics, watchlists, and ongoing monitoring, FraudGuard delivers actionable risk intelligence within more than 30 loan origination systems. Today’s lenders need more than data verification… They need actionable intelligence. With FraudGuard, lenders move beyond verification to validation, and beyond validation to actionable risk intelligence. Market leadership is earned through proven results, not new product announcements. Learn more here or call (800) 333-4510.
Capture more HELOC volume with NFTYDoor! Lenders looking to capture more home equity volume can now offer their borrowers lower rates with a NFTYDoor HELOC. NFTYDoor's lower rates deliver sharper pricing with the same flexible guidelines built to say "yes" (600+ FICO, up to 90 percent CLTV, and loan amounts up to $750K). Because NFTYDoor manages the full origination lifecycle from underwriting, processing, closing, and title curative, you can add a high-demand product without adding staff or infrastructure. Get your borrowers closing in as little as ZERO days! (6 days on average) with hospitality-grade human support on every file. Onboarding is fast and simple, allowing you to pass on these savings to your clients immediately. Apply today.
Truework, a Checkr Company, is the unified income, employment, and asset verification platform built for mortgage lenders, replacing slow, manual processes with fast and automated reports pulled directly from payroll providers and other authoritative data sources. Lenders see up to 50 percent cost savings on verifications, with faster turn times and higher accuracy. Trusted by 4 of the top 5 lenders in the US, Truework delivers verification results your team can rely on. Learn more.
Informative Research has rebuilt AccountChek from the ground up, and the result is a fast, resilient solution unified with the IR Verification Platform. The new AccountChek® introduces native Single Sign-On support, simplified user and billing management, faster report generation through asynchronous data harvesting, and enhanced disaster recovery capabilities built for the operational demands of mortgage lending. “AccountChek is designed for the unique demands of mortgage lending. This next iteration of the platform represents a major step forward in our verification strategy,” said IR President Matt Orlando. “Coupled with our recent acquisition in platform intelligence, we're creating a stronger, scalable solution that reduces friction for borrowers and decreases manual tasks for lenders." Read our blog to learn more about what’s changed in AccountChek.
The Chrisman Marketplace is a centralized hub for vendors and service providers across the industry to be viewed by lenders in a very cost-effective manner. We’re adding new providers daily, so check back often to see what’s new. To reserve your place or learn more, contact us at info@chrismancommentary.com.
RESPA: 52 Years Young
Recently, on Mortgage Law Today, the knowledgeable panelists addressed a bedrock in lending compliance: 1974’s Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act. Always under examination, but is it too complicated to change?
RESPA has served the mortgage industry for more than fifty years, and its core purpose of protecting consumers from abusive referral practices remains an important objective. The question facing the industry today is whether the framework surrounding RESPA reflects the way mortgages are actually originated in 2026. When the statute was enacted, referrals were largely personal, local, and relationship driven.
Today, consumers begin their homebuying journey through search engines, digital marketplaces, comparison tools, social media, and increasingly artificial intelligence. Marketing, referrals, and consumer influence are no longer confined to the face-to-face relationships that shaped much of the original guidance.
Yet many of the industry's compliance expectations continue to rely on interpretations developed decades ago for a marketplace that no longer exists. That disconnect leaves lenders trying to apply yesterday's guidance to technologies and business models that regulators could not have anticipated when many of those interpretations were written. Modernizing RESPA does not require abandoning its principles. Consumers should continue to receive transparent information, conflicts of interest should remain prohibited, and bad actors should still face meaningful consequences. But those protections should be accompanied by clearer, technology-neutral standards that distinguish legitimate digital marketing from prohibited referrals and provide practical guidance for emerging business models instead of relying on increasingly strained analogies to the past.
Mortgage lending has always evolved alongside consumer expectations, and regulation must evolve with it if it is going to remain both effective and predictable. A modern mortgage market deserves modern guidance, not because the industry's values have changed, but because the way consumers find lenders, evaluate options, and complete transactions has fundamentally changed since RESPA first became law.
Capital Markets
This morning Redwood Trust reported its second quarter financial results, notably showing that its mortgage banking production exceeded $8 billion for the second consecutive quarter, nearly double a year ago.
Mortgage-backed securities and U.S. Treasuries extended Friday’s rally to begin the week as crude oil fell from above $90 to near $82 per barrel after the weekend passed without additional U.S. strikes on Iran, raising hopes that diplomatic efforts may help contain tensions. The U.S. Treasury sold $69 billion in 2-year notes to good demand, though a $70 billion 5-year note sale was weak. Uncertainty remains elevated following last week’s global bond selloff, with investors still sharply divided over whether the Fed will raise rates again this month. Interest-rate swaps imply roughly a 40 percent chance of a quarter-point rate hike, even though the Federal Open Market Committee is still widely expected to leave the federal funds target range unchanged at 3.50 percent to 3.75 percent, the fifth consecutive meeting without a policy change since December 2025. Cooler-than-expected inflation and employment data support a wait-and-see approach, although energy prices, tariffs, AI-driven electronics costs, and labor shortages in service industries give policymakers little reason to declare victory in the fight against inflation. With forward guidance largely abandoned under Chair Warsh, both the policy statement and his press conference for clues about the Fed's evolving reaction function will be closely dissected. Rather than offering explicit guidance, officials are likely to emphasize that any September decision will remain data dependent. Warsh appears poised to shift the Fed toward a somewhat more forward-looking framework while maintaining respect for incoming economic data. And whereas recent decades emphasized transparency and detailed signaling to shape market expectations, the new leadership may allow markets to incorporate new information independently while the Fed learns from those price signals instead of trying to steer them, a meaningful departure from the communication strategy investors have grown accustomed to. Today’s economic calendar kicked off with June advance International Trade in Goods, advance Retail Inventories, and advance Wholesale Inventories, none of which moved rates. Later today brings FHFA’s Housing Price Index and S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index for May, July Consumer Confidence, and a Treasury auction of $44 billion 7-year Treasury notes. We begin Tuesday with Agency MBS prices roughly unchanged from Monday’s close, the 2-year yielding 4.30, and the 10-year yielding 4.62 after closing yesterday at 4.64 percent.
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