Wachovia Rolls Out Web-Based Mortgage System

Wachovia Corp. on Friday revealed that it has implemented a Web-based mortgage-lending system from Palisades Technology Partners that uses reusable business software components that can be deployed across customer and broker portals.

Wachovia Mortgage--Wachovia's mortgage division, which has $507 billion in assets--plans to deploy software components built into Palisades' Impact Mortgage Services Suite, such as loan pricing, fee calculations, and compliance, as Web services, says Laurie Smith, Wachovia's director of lending technology, in a statement.

For example, Wachovia could export the loan-pricing component to a consumer or broker portal, where the service could be called as an independent service. Portals "can tap into these stateless lending services, meaning they're not calling a service that's associated with a particular loan transaction," says Palisades chief technology officer Steve Octaviano.

The Impact suite includes a loan-processing system featuring work queues, task management, and processing alerts that Wachovia is using to reengineer its business processes. The system communicates with Wachovia's accounting, reporting, and secondary marketing systems, as well as workflow systems and application servers, using a standards-based interface, Octaviano says.

U.S. banks will spend a total of $3.5 billion on mortgage technology this year, up slightly from $3.4 billion last year, according to the TowerGroup research and consulting firm.