US insurer Fidelity National to offshore more work to India

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Chennai, Oct 5 (IANS) Spotting an opportunity to cut its costs by around 30 percent with increased productivity, US-based insurer Fidelity National Title Group Inc has decided to scale up its business process outsourcing (BPO) and software development activities in India.

The company had set up its captive BPO company Fidelity National Financial India in Bangalore three years back.

The $4.6 million revenue Fidelity National Financial India has around 800 employees searching and confirming property titles in the US for its insurance parent.

'We will be increasing the headcount by 1,000 to 1,800 starting next year for our BPO operations so that we can shift work like accounts payable, legal operations here. We are also planning to expand the software development team here,' Senior Vice President Andy Giddings told IANS.

According to him, the insurer has decided to develop software for its core title insurance business back home out of India in May and formed a small team of 25 people.

'We will be expanding that team by adding 100 more software engineers during the first quarter of the next year. We have around 15 different software applications and we expect the number to go down with the development of integrated programmes,' Giddings said.

Posted via email from Title Insurance

Federal Reserve Bans Yield Spread Premiums

Federal Reserve Bans Yield Spread Premiums press release 8/16/2010

The Federal Reserve Board on Monday announced final rules to protect mortgage borrowers from unfair, abusive, or deceptive lending practices that can arise from loan originator compensation practices. The new rules apply to mortgage brokers and the companies that employ them, as well as mortgage loan officers employed by depository institutions and other lenders.

Today, lenders commonly pay loan originators more compensation if the borrower accepts an interest rate higher than the rate required by the lender (commonly referred to as a "yield spread premium"). Under the final rule, however, a loan originator may not receive compensation that is based on the interest rate or other loan terms. This will prevent loan originators from increasing their own compensation by raising the consumers' loan costs, such as by increasing the interest rate or points. Loan originators can continue to receive compensation that is based on a percentage of the loan amount, which is a common practice.

The final rule also prohibits a loan originator that receives compensation directly from the consumer from also receiving compensation from the lender or another party. In consumer testing, the Board found that consumers generally are not aware of the payments lenders make to loan originators and how those payments can affect the consumer's total loan cost. The new rule seeks to ensure that consumers who agree to pay the originator directly do not also pay the originator indirectly through a higher interest rate, thereby paying more in total compensation than they realize.

Additionally, the final rule prohibits loan originators from directing or "steering" a consumer to accept a mortgage loan that is not in the consumer's interest in order to increase the originator's compensation. The rule will preserve consumer choice by ensuring that consumers can choose from loan options that include the loan with the lowest rate and the loan with the least amount of points and origination fees, rather than the loans that maximize the originator's compensation.

via sourceoftitle.com

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