Five Reasons to Integrate and Automate PACER Searches

NetD-5-Reasons

For default servicing firms, bankruptcy status updates and searches can be a time-consuming compliance requirement. With a variety of possible bankruptcy filing databases to research and time-sensitive file updates, it makes sense to automate this frustrating task with a reliable integration partner.

We’re looking at five of the biggest reasons that firms struggle with PACER searches and bankruptcy status compliance.

Time-Sensitive Searches

Default servicing firms know one thing for certain – never mess with a servicer’s deadlines. Missed dates for bankruptcy status checks or SCRA searches can yield damage to scorecards, lost referrals, and more bad news if it’s an ongoing issue.

Automation with integrated search functionality lets firms rest easy knowing these tasks are being completed and files are updated on schedule every time.

Missing Data for Borrowers

Often, firms can only work with what they’re given. By utilizing a PACER search service that includes access to SSN Finder, even incomplete data can yield important search results that might have otherwise been missed if not combined with deeper search functionality.

Our SSN Finder-assisted PACER searches, for example, can help find borrower bankruptcy data without a full SSN across both regional and national listings.

Labor-Intensive Detective Work

The variety of national and regional bankruptcy filing databases makes finding accurate borrower information hard, especially for borrowers who are still in the filing process. Regional filings may not have made it to national databases or may have been filed in an unexpected location.

Without a powerful integrated search option, this means at best an excess of human labor dedicated to playing the “private eye” for borrower files, and ensuring no stone goes unturned, or at worst missed results and miscategorized files.

Frequent Updates/Changes

We’ve worked with firms over the years who have chosen to leverage the PACER search APIs themselves with mixed success. Unfortunately, this often comes down to the resources required to maintain and support an integration of this scale and importance.

Online databases frequently make changes or updates to their APIs or connectivity schema, sometimes with little or no warning ahead of the change. In the last twelve months, the available PACER search endpoints had at least eight planned PACER-initiated maintenance windows that resulted in necessary changes and upgrades to retain functionality, plus countless unplanned slowdowns, errors, and more on the PACER API side that required investigation and troubleshooting.

This often yields panic and confusion for firms managing these connections and searches independently, as well as unavoidable downtime while updates are made. A good data integration partner for PACER is going to not only be able to respond quickly to major changes but effectively and accurately plan along the way so the solution remains up and running as often and as long as possible.

Input and Recording Errors

While there’s no replacement for human attention with certain tasks, transposing and inputting data just isn’t something humans are specialized for. Your team should be focused on critical thinking and analysis, not trying to replicate what good automation should do on its own – finding the right data, and accurately getting it where it needs to go.

Human searches and data entry are prone to inaccuracy, even with the best team in place. Let your firm’s employees focus on the work that needs a human touch.

Make the Change to an Automated and Integrated Bankruptcy Solution

PACER searches are just one of the things we handle here at NetDirector. We provide fully integrated solutions to default servicing firms beyond just integrating referrals – NetDirector has services for bankruptcy searches, military/SCRA status, death records, and a whole lot more. Contact us today to find out how else NetDirector can transform even your most complex data integration scenarios.

New Wildcard Functionality for Document Requests

Document Request WildCard

New Wildcard Functionality for Document Requests, plus Filtering for Black Knight Documents

Announcing: Wildcards for Black Knight and TEMPO Document Requests!

NetDirector has added new functionality for the Document Request transactions for both Black Knight and TEMPO integrations. The Doc Request transaction is a request for documents from Black Knight or TEMPO based on the NTRID (or loan number for TEMPO).

Major benefits include:

  • on-demand documents that you’re in control of
  • pay only when documents are returned, not requested
  • no more polling client systems and waiting on pre-determined intervals
  • eliminate automatic acknowledgment of the file receipt by attorney

For wildcards, just supply the DOCUMENT_TYPE and we’ll search via the provided paramters (i.e. starts with, ends with, contains, etc.). We also accept multiple document types in that field.

For Black Knight specifically, we also offer filtering – if you choose we can ignore any document ID we have received in the past from Black Knight.

Please see our Document Request data dictionary in our new TranSend portal for more details, features, and requirements.

For more information, and to learn about upcoming expansions of extraction functionality, contact our integration experts.

Contact Us

To learn more about NetDirector’s full spectrum of integration services and solutions, contact us today and discover how to revolutionize actual interoperability for your platform or organization.

NetDirector Completes Demanding Security Audits for SOC2 and HIPAA Requirement

Tampa, FL – October 27, 2020 – NetDirector, a cloud-based data exchange and integration platform, has recently undergone the intense task of renewing our SOC 2 ® and HIPAA compliance examinations with the help of nationally-renowned security audit firm, A-LIGN. NetDirector was recently awarded with complete attestations in compliance with HIPAA and SOC 2 Type II standards, two of the leading security standards in Healthcare and Mortgage Banking.

The SOC 2, or System and Organization Controls 2, is an examination under AICPA standards designed for technology service companies to demonstrate controls around data security and processing integrity. The SOC 2 reports are intended to meet the needs of a broad range of users (particularly those in legal, healthcare, and other industries with stringent regulations) that need to understand internal controls at a service organization as it relates to security, availability, process integrity, confidentiality, and privacy. The Type II report is a report on management’s description of a service organization’s system and the suitability of the design and operating effectiveness of controls.

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, defines policies and procedures, as well as processes, which are required of companies that store, process, or handle electronic health information that is considered “protected” (ePHI). HIPAA compliance is increasingly valuable to both technology service providers and integrators like NetDirector, as well as providers, electronic health records systems, billing platforms, and others integrating and utilizing healthcare data.

Both the SOC 2 and the HIPAA audit were performed by Tampa-headquartered nationwide security and compliance solutions provider A-LIGN. A-LIGN specializes in helping businesses across a variety of industries navigate the complexities of specific audits and security assessments, and both the SOC 2 and HIPAA reports of A-LIGN’s findings can be made available to prospective or current customers.

“NetDirector displayed the necessary controls in their HIPAA and SOC 2 attestation reports,” said Scott Price, CEO of A-LIGN.  “The organization delivers cloud-based data and document exchange services to their clients, and by communicating the results of the report, NetDirector can demonstrate to clients the controls relevant to address various levels of risk.”

In addition to the in-house attestations, the data centers utilized by NetDirector through Flexential maintain the most stringent and compliant security standards throughout their facilities and operations. Several technology companies have recently been brought to light as claiming “compliance” in their organization, when they really mean that their data center has gone through the rigorous examination, but they haven’t completed the process themselves. At NetDirector, the belief is in transparency and clear communication regarding security, including compliance audits at all ends of the process.

“I am very proud of our team for successfully completing these important 3rd party audits,” said Harry Beisswenger, NetDirector CEO. “The industries that we facilitate data integration for – Mortgage Banking and Healthcare – are two of the most highly regulated environments in terms of data security. We are committed to meeting and exceeding these industry standards so that our clients can always rest easy knowing their data is secure at every point in the integration process.”

Company Bio:

NetDirector provides a secure cloud-based data and document exchange solution for the healthcare and mortgage banking industries to deliver seamless data integration between parties. NetDirector bridges gaps created by disparate systems & technologies by allowing companies at any location to share data & documents securely over a single internet connection with any other member of the ecosystem. Our approach allows trading partners to collaborate and exchange data in a seamless, bi-directional, real-time manner. NetDirector currently processes more than 8 million transactions per month.

About A-LIGN
A-LIGN is a technology-enabled security and compliance partner trusted by more than 2,500 global organizations to help mitigate cybersecurity risks. A-LIGN uniquely delivers a single-provider approach as a HITRUST CSF Assessor firm, Qualified Security Assessor Company, accredited ISO 27001, ISO 27701 and ISO 22301 Certification Body, accredited FedRAMP 3PAO and licensed CPA firm. Working with small businesses to global enterprises, A-LIGN experts and its proprietary compliance management platform, A-SCEND, are transforming the compliance experience enabling an anytime, anywhere approach to audits. For more information, visit www.A-LIGN.com.

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Ready for an Automation Review?

Automation Review

We’ve put together a simple video to explain what our Automation Review process is like – we conduct these Automation Reviews with customers totally free of charge to help improve their internal and external business processes. By leveraging NetDirector’s integration and automation options to the fullest extent, we frequently find ways to save our mortgage banking customers even more money, improve compliance and servicer scorecards, and provide a higher degree of accuracy and efficiency.

Interested in an Automation Review for your company? Contact our National Account Manager Gretchen Borer at Gretchen@NetDirector.biz or by phone at 813.343.0971 today to schedule your review!

NetDirector Releases New Dashboard Functionality to Increase Integration-Based Savings in Mortgage Banking

Mortgage Banking Dashboard

Tampa, Fla. – April 16, 2020 – NetDirector, the most advanced cloud-based data exchange and integration platform for the default servicing industry, has released a new client-facing dashboard and analysis tool for their mortgage banking integration suite of services.

New Features, New Efficiencies

The most highly-demanded feature of the new Mortgage Banking dashboard is a series of analytics tools for transaction monitoring and analysis. Users will now be able to identify historical trends across a wide array of data sets, as well as monitor data flow and transaction success rates. These tools are built on cutting-edge frameworks and provide a clean graphical display of transaction frequency, volume, success, and more.

In addition, users can now see how their overall automation level compares to both the average NetDirector user and the users with the highest degree of automation by analyzing their Automation Footprint. The Automation Footprint is provided to each user on their personalized dashboard, where they can compare the number of different data transactions they are utilizing, to the maximum number possible, as well as to the average among all users and the highest among any one user.

The goal of providing this transparency is to allow default servicing firms and vendors to create highly reliable and efficient processes with as much automation as possible. As mortgage default volumes continue to shrink, firms are looking for every way possible to become lean and efficient. Their primary goal is to increase the volume of foreclosures they can process without adding labor and resources to their current team. Vendors are looking to increase their offerings and the ease of adoption/use for firms to ensure they continue to meet the rigorous technological demands of their customers. NetDirector enables both sides of the equation to reach unparalleled levels of efficiency and automation thanks to rapid deployment and one-to-many style integration hub technology.

Cutting-Edge Analytical Tools

The new Mortgage Banking Dashboard has three different views available by default, with sorting and filtering options around connection type, trading partner, date, and more. The new dashboard will provide unprecedented clarity into the activity going on behind the scenes of a firm’s case management system and integrations. This insight will allow both technical and legal professionals in a firm to accurately make decisions around new technologies, caseloads, timelines, and overall process improvement.

“We have always wanted firms to be in complete control of their integrations, even when we do the heavy lifting on their behalf,” said Harry Beisswenger, CEO of NetDirector. “With the new dashboard, they can see the integrations in real time and access a level of self-service previously unavailable, while still having their expert Integration Analyst and the years of NetDirector’s experience at their disposal.”

Company Bio:

NetDirector provides a secure cloud-based data and document exchange solution for the healthcare and mortgage banking industries to deliver seamless data integration between parties. NetDirector bridges gaps created by disparate systems & technologies by allowing companies at any location to share data & documents securely over a single internet connection with any other member of the ecosystem. Our approach allows trading partners to collaborate and exchange data in a seamless, bi-directional, real-time manner. With security and longevity as a focus, NetDirector is a certified SOC 2 type II and HIPAA Compliant company, a 6-year member of the prominent Inc. 5000, and currently processes more than 9 million transactions per month.

Critical Transactions for Default Servicing Firms in the Age of COVID-19

Default servicing firms are all too familiar with the phrase “do more with less”, but the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic has created an environment of uncertainty and doubt for even some of the most experienced firms we worked with.

We’ve leveraged our decades of combined experience in the industry to provide your firm with several ideas on how to stay ahead of the game by implementing several transactions and automating as much as possible.

Our analysts have highlighted the transactions that are most critical and that can provide for a high degree of efficiency even with reduced staffing. Additionally, these transactions could save your firm when volumes swing back the other direction.

Reprojections

Many files are being placed on hold right now due to moratoriums, delays, and more. When these files come off hold, they’ll all be released at one time, opening the flood gates. Any steps that were due while the file was on hold, will now be late. Firms need to reproject those steps – it can be as simple as “reprojecting 15 days out due to COVID-19 delay”, but the labor involved could be monumental if it isn’t automated, since it will have to be done on every file that has been held, and moratoriums are lasting over 30 days.

Add Hold

Many law firms (and Black Knight) use the term “soft hold”. It means the file is still active, but there isn’t anything that can be done to move the file forward due to external circumstances. When those flood gates are eventually opened, everything down stream gets delayed – court filings, hearings with overbooked judges, sale delays, and more. To carve out these delays from the firms timelines and scorecards, you can request an Add Hold (aka “soft hold”) for court delay, judge’s calendar delay, etc. The file still remains open/active in Black Knight during these types of “soft holds”.

Fees and Costs

It’s a common practice for servicers to request fees and costs after files come off hold – and a lot of files are going to come off of hold all at once when the dust settles. The servicer typically receives many requests from borrowers for reinstatement or payoff amounts and they need to know what the firms have incurred.

Hold Updates

Files are going to see a lot of changes after this; homeowners will get attorneys, loan modifications, bankruptcy filings will occur, and more. This means that even after files are released, there will still be further changes and holds. The hold update transaction captures these, and can also capture when a hold ends or changes. This lets firms receive this transaction when a Hold is added, changed, or ended. Firms also don’t need to intake this transaction into their system – from a risk management perspective, it might make sense for these Hold Update transactions to generate an email notification to a hold/close/proceed email inbox.

Standard Events

This is absolutely the time to implement and automate standard events. Firms are going to be shorthanded when the volumes increase. While the labor force ramps back up, it’s going to be critical that firm employees don’t need to spend time manually updating case management systems and Black Knight. These dates/events are already stored in your systems, so there isn’t a good reason not to automate these. For firms that might be nervous about something being missed, exception reports will provide an opportunity to cross-reference.

SCRA Enhancements and Upgrades – Military Search Plus

Military Search Update

We have recently added a new transaction to our SCRA services, called the Military Search Plus.

This new transaction brings new functionality to the suite – users can now perform a military search on multiple parties simultaneously. The multiple-party search adds repeatable Party information and gives the option to consolidate the returned results into a single PDF document.

The response to the request also contains the number of searches and SSN lookups performed, saving the time and effort of generating multiple individual searches and condensing the results after the fact.

SCRA 2
An example of a High Level response.

Pricing will remain the same for the traditional Military Search transactions.

Future enhancement plans include enabling a search to include name permutations (AKA, KA, etc.). We welcome suggestions for additional upgrades to the functionality of the SCRA services.

To make suggestions, request more information, or to schedule a free demo, please fill out our contact us form or call your integration analyst.

Black Knight V3 Update February 2016

What does my firm need to know about Black Knight V3?

Upgrades are always intimidating – even updating the software on a smart phone can sometimes bring major issues – but this isn’t the case with NetDirector and Black Knight.

We’re here and ready for you to upgrade to V3 – if you’re currently handling the integration yourself, you can let us take over as the integration specialists to save yourself the development and maintenance time.

As for changes, a major upgrade has been made to the retrieval of referrals.   Where there was formerly a queue, there are now separate web services to obtain loan, referral and step description information.  In addition to this, it is the responsibility of the integrator to identify what is new to what has already been received.  There are also additional fields available in V3 for referrals, such as Client Region Code.

Standard Event integration has also received an upgrade – There are now 4 separate web services calls (step completion/DDF/Comments/Vendor Reference update) compared to the 1 in V2.  However, if you are currently integrated with NetDirector in V2 for standard event, you do not need to change anything.

Previous deficiencies in V3 have been addressed by Black Knight as the SSN functionality (able to receive the last 4 of SSN) and Document Upload limits match what is in V2.

The deadline to submit the migration forms to Black Knight was 12/31/15 – if your migration form was not submitted prior to this date, contact your Integration Analyst at NetDirector or your Black Knight representative for pricing on the upgrade.

  • V3 Functions
    • Referrals and Workload – LIVE!
    • Documents (upload/download) – LIVE!
    • Doc Request available in V3 in November 2016 Standard Events (basic) – LIVE!
    • Launch Process/Add Hold/Fees & Costs/All other transactions – LIVE!
    • Standard Events (DDF’s) – LIVE!

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us online or reach out to your Integration Specialist for more help.

Doc Download Request

Doc Download RequestOverview

  • Firm would initiate retrieval of documents with a request transaction
  • Request would contain RID of the referral package they want to receive
  • Would still allow firms to select which documents they want to receive

Functionality

  • Alleviate the auto-acknowledgement of milestone events from downloading documents

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Fannie Mae DMRS Update

Fannie Mae DMRSWhere we stand today

Firms are up and running with automated DMRS reporting!

  • Firms in Group 1 have been submitting Alpha and Control files
  • Firms awaiting FNMA sign-off to move to production

If I am not in Group 1, what do I need to know?

  • What group am I in?
  • Need to review the data dictionary and find what events are required in my states
  • For the events I am required to report on, what data is required to be sent with them.
  • FNMA requires that you supply the field that will be used to populate the required data elements.
  • I will need to complete the FNMA workbook to receive codes for all the servicers I do business with for FNMA.
  • Once your firm receives SFTP information from Black Knight, please forward to your integration analyst.

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