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CFPB Issues Circular Regarding Data Protection Security

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”) published Circular 2022-04 on August 11, 2022 which confirmed that financial institutions may violate the prohibition on unfair acts or practices under the Consumer Financial Protection Act (“CFPA”) by having insufficient data protection or information security.

“Financial firms that cut corners on data security put their customers at risk of identity theft, fraud, and abuse,” said CFPB Director Rohit Chopra. “While many nonbank companies and financial technology providers have not been subject to careful oversight over their data security, they risk legal liability when they fail to take common-sense steps to protect personal financial data.”

The circular provides that under the CFPA an unfair act or practice would be one that (1) causes or is likely to cause substantial injury to consumers, (2) is not reasonably avoidable by consumers, and (3) is not outweighed by countervailing benefits to consumers or competition. Additionally, an actual injury is not required to prove an unfair act or practice under the CFPA. Examples of data security practices which are widely used to protect consumer data are provided in the Circular.

Further, three examples of data security measures which are indicated to reduce the likelihood of a violation of unfair act or practices include multi-factor authentication, password management policies and practices, and timely software updates. Not using these types of security measures may indicate a financial institution has inadequate data protection.

Circulars are a new tool being used by the CFPB to provide supervisory guidance on individual topics. For more information on this type of guidance, see DocMagic’s prior compliance article here.

 

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HOUSINGWIRE HONORS DOCMAGIC’S CHIEF COMPLIANCE OFFICER GAVIN T. ALES WITH 2022 INSIDERS AWARD

A well-known industry expert in mortgage banking compliance and law, Ales tackles some of the most challenging compliance issues facing the industry with loan documents and eClosings. In the last 12 months, he has successfully taken on multiple impactful company and industry-based projects, which the judges at HousingWire examined closely and determined Ales’ most recent contributions.

“It is refreshing to see that my efforts on the compliance and legal side of mortgage software are having an operational impact,” stated Ales. “We are constantly doing outstanding things at DocMagic to move the industry forward. Both my team and I are honored to be recognized.”

Winners of HW’s Insiders accolade represent a wide range of occupations within the housing economy, from lending and real estate to fintech. According to HW, Insiders are the internal professionals that their companies turn to with their most important or challenging behind-the-scenes projects, and their contributions and hard work lead to superior results.

Among some of Ales’ key contributions were his assistance in developing DocMagic’s e-Eligibility solution, eDecision™. He also added functionality to DocMagic’s loan generation solution that supports the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) for the visually impaired to read mortgage loan documents. In addition, Ales worked on the Affordable Housing Initiative (AHIT) for Freddie Mac that helped create first-ever instruments to include subordinate liens.

And always at the top of Ales’ list of business-critical compliance initiatives is to move the mortgage industry toward going paperless. Looking ahead, Ales seeks to add compliance guidelines and functionality for use by Limited English Proficiency (LEP) borrowers to assist them in better interpreting loan documents.

“Each year, the HW Insiders award represents a versatile group of unsung heroes who are vital to the smooth functioning of their organizations,” HousingWire Editor in Chief Sarah Wheeler said. “While they may operate behind the scenes, the tireless work of these honorees has a huge impact on the larger housing ecosystem. We are honored to recognize this impressive group of industry experts.”

The complete list of HousingWire 2022 Insiders winners can be found at https://www.housingwire.com/articles/361547/.

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DocMagic Earns a Second Consecutive Spot on the Inc. 5000 List of Fastest-Growing Private Companies

DocMagic has again made Inc. 5000’s list of fastest-growing private companies for 2022. Companies on this year’s Inc. 5000 list are ranked according to percentage of revenue growth from 2018 to 2021. DocMagic’s growth rate for this three-year period was 100 percent, earning the company the rank of 4,434 in the financial services category.

“We are honored to have achieved a growth rate that places us on Inc.’s prestigious list of rapidly growing U.S. companies for a second time,” said Dominic Iannitti, president and CEO of DocMagic. “The mortgage banking industry continues to be a highly competitive environment. Making this list in back-to-back years tells us that our digital solutions are putting our growing list of lender-clients in the most efficient, compliant and cost-effective positions possible.”

DocMagic’s award-winning Total eClose™ platform, document generation, automated compliance and targeted digital lending solutions are credited with helping lenders successfully operate in an unprecedentedly high-volume lending landscape.

Inc. magazine stated that the companies on the 2022 Inc. 5000 list have not only been successful, but have also demonstrated resilience amid supply chain woes, labor shortages, and the ongoing impact of Covid-19. Notable is that the total revenue among the 5000 companies on the 2022 list was $317.5 billion with 1,178,549 jobs added. Only 945 companies on this year’s list were repeat honorees like DocMagic.

“The accomplishment of building one of the fastest-growing companies in the U.S., in light of recent economic roadblocks, cannot be overstated,” says Scott Omelianuk, editor-in-chief of Inc. “Inc. is thrilled to honor the companies that have established themselves through innovation, hard work, and rising to the challenges of today.”

Complete results of the 2022 Inc. 5000 winners, including company profiles and an interactive database that can be sorted by industry, region, and other criteria, can be found at www.inc.com/inc5000.

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Committing to excellence with our Sub-Second Directive

One of DocMagic's primary goals is building technology to help lenders close loans faster. State-of-the-art software solutions enable modern and agile lending, automate workflows, and increase speed to market.

To do this, we sweat every detail. On a granular level, we trim time from every operation our systems perform, even as we continue to add updates and enhancements. This balancing act—increasing the number of operations performed by our technology while at the same time ensuring every processing operation is completed in under one second— is what we call the Sub-Second Directive (SSD).

See it in action:

DocMagic employs an extensive monitoring system which utilizes multiple strategies in tandem to create a comprehensive, up-to-the-moment picture of the health of our processing systems. The foundation of the monitoring system consists of over 3,000 service and application checks. (Real-time processing metrics are available on our System Status Dashboard: https://www.docmagic.com/webservices/status/main.jsp). The SSD analyzes these metrics to identify those processes that have an execution time in excess of one second.

Continuously meeting the challenge:

DocMagic’s Infrastructure and Software Development teams collaborate to re-architect any process not meeting our sub-second standards. Some of the ways we meet this challenge is through infrastructure improvements, the migration of applications to a microservice architecture, and code optimization. We also identify linear processes that could be refactored to execute in parallel to reduce the time.

Giving our customers optimized solutions that deliver faster and better results gives them an advantage over their competition, positioning them to handle any mortgage market. To find out more about how our focus on innovation can help you to achieve your objectives, visit docmagic.com.

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Loan Detail Report Product Training

Loan Detail Report

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US House Passes The Secure Notarization Act

On Wednesday July 27th, the United States House passed the “Securing and Enabling Commerce Using Remote and Electronic Notarization Act of 2022”, also called the “SECURE Notarization Act”, by a vote of 336 in favor to 90 against.  The SECURE Notarization Act would immediately grant remote notarization abilities to all commissioned notaries in the United States, subject to additional state requirements where those exist.  The Act has not yet been passed by the Senate which has introduced its own companion bill that currently remains in committee review.

Notary laws enacted throughout the United States before the proliferation of communication technology required the “personal appearance” of a signer before a notary, often requiring a “physical presence” within a certain distance of each other. The SECURE Notarization Act would achieve its purpose by immediately authorizing all commissioned notaries to conduct a notarization with a “remotely located individual” which still requires the personal appearance before the notary of the signer but allows it to be accomplished through the use of “communication technology.”  The Act also modifies any state law requiring physical presence to now be satisfied through the use of communication technology.

As is now common with remote notarization authorizing statutes, the SECURE Notarization Act establishes minimum identification requirements on the notarization, including:

  • Personal knowledge of the signer
  • Proof of the signer’s identity by oath or affirmation of a credible witness
  • Completion of at least two forms of identity proofing using information obtained from public and private sources, such as a knowledge-based assessment.

The Act also requires that a recording of the notarization be made and stored by the notary in an electronic journal for at least 5 years if a state has a shorter requirement or at least 10 years if there is no state rule.

While the Act would immediately authorize commissioned notaries to conduct notarizations with remotely located individuals, it would not prevent states from enacting additional requirements, including requiring a separate application or approval by the state.  However, states are preempted from enacting laws which directly contradict the federal authorization to conduct a notarization with a remotely located individual or outside the physical presence of the signer.  The Act would also require all states to recognize the validity of notarizations validly completed under the laws of any other state or the Act.

Senate Bill 1625, which is the senate’s version of this bill with the same name, remains pending in the Senate, as we last discussed here.  DocMagic will continue to monitor developments both at the federal and state level and provide updates to our documents and systems as necessary to enable our customers to easily adopt electronic closings.

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FEDERAL AGENCIES ISSUE UPDATED INTERAGENCY FLOOD INSURANCE Q&AS

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (“OCC”), Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (“Board”), Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (“FDIC”), Farm Credit Administration (“FCA”), and National Credit Union Administration (“NCUA”) (collectively, the “Agencies”) recently issued revised and expanded interagency questions and answers (“Q&As”) regarding federal flood insurance laws.

The guidance, titled Loans in Areas Having Special Flood Hazards; Interagency Questions and Answers Regarding Flood Insurance, covers major amendments to federal flood insurance laws with regard to the escrow of flood insurance premiums, the detached structure exemption, force placement procedures and the acceptance of flood insurance policies issued by private insurers.

The new released Q&As consolidation and supersede the sets of Q&As released by the Agencies in July 2020 and March 2021 which addressed changes to flood insurance requirements under the Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act and the Homeowner Flood Insurance Affordability Act. In addition to expanded guidance, the new Q&As are reorganized for easier reference.

It should be noted that the Agencies state the new Q&As are provided only as “guidance” under the regulations and applies to both the National Flood Insurance Program and private flood insurance.

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