MERS to Transfer Management of MISMO to MBA

""Merscorp, Inc."":http://www.mersinc.org, the parent company of Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems (MERS), has been managing the daily operations of the Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization, Inc. (MISMO) for the last two-and-a-half years.

But effective December 1, 2011, Merscorp will hand that responsibility back to MISMO's parent organization, the ""Mortgage Bankers Association"":http://www.mortgagebankers.org (MBA).

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According to David Stevens, president and CEO of MBA, with the successful launch of the MISMO 3.0 reference model, MISMO can now shift to focus efforts on regulatory implementation and advocating for broader adoption throughout the industry.

""The MBA and Merscorp came to the conclusion that with this shift in focus, management should return to MBA, where MISMO adoption efforts can be synchronized with MBA advocacy,"" Stevens said.

Stevens says Merscorp will continue to play a role in influencing the work of MISMO, but Merscorp president

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and CEO Bill Beckmann says the time is right for MISMO to return to MBA.

""We are one of the largest adopters of the MISMO Standards and we'll continue to work closely with MISMO to encourage adoption of standards that, along with the mission of Merscorp, promote efficiency in mortgage transactions,"" Beckmann said.

Stevens says with all the changes in regulation over the last two years make the benefit of implementing data standards across the real estate finance industry even greater.

He adds that new reporting requirements highlight the need for a common vocabulary and data exchange mechanism and that standardization and transparency will help return investor confidence and liquidity to the marketplace.

""MBA will continue to encourage regulators to adopt MISMO standards for regulatory reporting,"" Stevens said. ""The utilization of a single, consensus industry standard will greatly reduce compliance costs for the mortgage industry.""

MISMO develops data transfer protocols and technical guidance for both the residential and commercial real estate finance industries. The organization coordinates the development and maintenance of Internet-based Extensible Markup Language (XML) for real estate finance specifications and electronic mortgage guidelines.

MISMO's workgroups include more than 1,000 individual participants and over 125 subscribing organizations, including: lenders, originators, servicers, investors, the GSEs, technology vendors, service providers, credit reporting agencies, insurance firms, and law firms.