This is part two of a three-part series. Click here to read part one.

At this year’s Mortgage Banking Association (MBA) Annual Conference, the words echoing in an overwhelming majority of booths revolved around issues of government policies, servicing, loss mitigation approaches, and work-out strategies such as loan modifications and refinancing.

With large national lenders in possession of multi-billion dollar loans portfolios that are becoming increasingly difficult to price, sell or service, mitigating losses and insuring these loan pools and underlying securities are a high priority. As quoted in a recent whitepaper written by Bill Kelvie, Overture’s CEO and former CIO of Fannie Mae,

“The current mortgage crisis is unprecedented in its scale and impact, seemingly outstripping efforts to contain and control it. Information that exists to begin to manage it appears to be too fragmented and dated to gain real traction.

The solution that is required will necessarily address three issues: First and most immediate is to stem the ever-rising number of foreclosures through better loss mitigation techniques. Each distressed borrower should be presented with work-out options other than foreclosure, which is the most expensive in terms of economics and the impact on the family and community.

The second issue is price discovery – the thorny problem of determining a value for a mortgage-backed security when a ready, continuous market longer exists.

The final issue is one of oversight and management, to gather information about what is working and what is not, as well as to combat waste and fraud.”

For those of us in the industry equipped with the technology to help solve these credit challenges, the MBA Annual Conference conversations were very timely. Given the urgency and importance of addressing these risks, audience interest was highest during the display of the latest version of Overture’s Re-Decisioning, demonstrating to lenders that with the right technology portfolios can easily be re-evaluated and worked out on a loan-by-loan basis with simple, reliable, scalable, and transparent decisioning solutions from Overture Technologies.

To learn more about how to return to profitability whether dealing with acquisitions, fulfillment, secondary marketing or loan servicing, visit the Mortgage Finance section of our website or contact us at 301-492-2140 or by e-mailing sales@overturecorp.com.

In our final entry of this series, we will discuss the burning question that remains post-conference, how to equip industry players with solutions that supports them for the regulatory changes coming in 2009 and beyond.