MISMO’S Servicing Transfer Catalog (MSTC) is now available for industry use, the group announced. The new tool provides industry standard templates for the required documents and information for transferring residential mortgage loan portfolios between servicers.
“The MISMO Servicing Transfer Catalog was developed to be a useful, ‘best practices’ playbook that servicers can use to facilitate servicer-to-servicer transfers,” MISMO President David Coleman said in a release. “The industry standard templates provided are designed to improve speed and accuracy and create a more seamless process for the borrower and the new transferee servicer.”
The catalog is meant to:
- Assist the transferee in complying with regulatory requirements.
- Support the timely and accurate transfer of residential loan information.
- Facilitate uninterrupted loan servicing.
- Provide guidance for reducing potential negative effects to both borrower and the new transferee servicer as a result of the transfer.
The templates contained in the catalog provide the minimum set of instructional and transactional documentation required when conducting a servicer-to-servicer transfer of a residential mortgage loan portfolio. The MSTC also contains templates and best practices for servicing transfer instructions, portfolio characteristics, image transfer schedules, required reporting, and reconciliation. It also has an implementation guide designed to assist the new transferee servicer with high-level information on how to implement and maintain the MSTC.
“Our focus is on instructions and information needed for servicer-to-servicer transfers; however, the contents of our catalog should contain language and recommendations that align to flow or originator to servicer onboarding,” the MSTC stated in the implementation guide. “The instructions reinforce supplying and reconciling of all loan level data and loan characteristics/status during a transfer, in addition to supporting any compliance regulations.”
The organization’s new closing instructions templates and XML mapping specifications also received “candidate recommendation” status, meaning these work products have been thoroughly reviewed by a wide range of organizations and industry participants.
The updated closing instruction templates come in two formats, master and transactional. They focus on the format and organization of the instructions, rather than the legal language often included in the instructions, to create a “better, and more seamless experience for all parties,” the organization stated.
“MISMO’s Master and Transactional Closing Instruction templates create a consistent format for closing instructions and are designed to enhance communication between lenders and settlement agents, thereby reducing closing errors,” Coleman said.
The revisions to these templates clarify field label names to align with industry standards, added fields to capture data requested by the industry, and enhanced fields related to eClosings based on industry adoption. The workgroup that implemented these changes also created an XML mapping specification to accompany the transactional closing instruction template as a guide for implementers when defining data requirements.