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LIXI™ in the media

The Australian
News Limited
Edition 1 - All-round Country TUE 22 FEB 2005, Page 030

Standard slashes mortgage processing time
By Staff writers

E-commerce
E-COMMERCE standards in the mortgage sector have dramatically improved application processing times by reducing data entry and paperwork and increasing accuracy, according to recent research.

Commissioned by the Lending Industry XML Initiative, a not-for-profit e-commerce standards group, the study finds much data required for a mortgage application is still exchanged by fax and phone.

LIXI developed the Credit Application Language to standardise home-loan information for electronic transfer.

Mortgage application processing took an average of 13.4 days, but brokers and lenders using CAL-compliant systems reduced this to seven days, the study finds.

This cut processing costs from an average of $734 an application to just $213.
Electronic transactions account for 21 per cent of loan applications, and the rate will rise to 35 per cent in 2005, 55 per cent in 2006 and 70 per cent in 2007, the report estimates.

LIXI aims to automate the residential lending sector from application through to settlement.

"Applying for a mortgage is amazingly complex, involving up to nine organisations,'' LIXI chairman Socrates Vasiliadis said.

"Much of the data is still exchanged by fax and phone, increasing the margin for error.''

LIXI expects automation will cut costs by more than $10 million a year.

Column: IT Today / Computers
Section: FEATURES