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Ocwen (from 43 percent to 52 percent), and Litton (51 percent to 65 percent). Wells Conducting Background Checks and Fingerprinting Employees Wells Fargo made a decision to terminate company employees with past criminal records involving dishonesty or breach of trust, the bank announced in mid-May. "The decision to terminate team members over criminal matters that occurred prior to their employment with Wells Fargo may seem tough—we recognize that these situations are difficult for everyone involved—but laws and regulations related to the employment of bank employees are designed to protect the interests of all consumers who put their trust in financial service companies," Wells Fargo said in a statement. Explaining its decision, the bank said that as an insured depository institution, Wells is bound by Section 19 of the Federal Deposit Insurance Act. The act does not allow banks to hire or continue the employment of anyone who is known to have a criminal record involving dishonesty or breach of trust. Wells Fargo said it has been conducting background checks, which include fingerprints with the FBI, on its team members. If any employee does have a criminal record involving charges that might be disqualifying, he or she can dispute the accuracy of the information and appeal the termination if a mistake is believed to have been made. Should bank officials be found to be in violation of Section 19 of the legislation referenced, they could be fined up to $1,000,000 per day or face imprisonment for up to five years, or both. Headquartered in San Francisco, Wells Fargo is a nationwide, diversified, community-based financial services company with $1.3 trillion in assets. Ellie Mae Offers Buy-Back Insurance Option Ellie Mae is adding a loan buy-back insurance option to its Total Quality Loan (TQL) program. TQL is an initiative to improve the quality of loans originated through Ellie Mae's Encompass360 mortgage management 84 software system. TQL offers a set of services tailored to individual aggregator/investor requirements related to fraud detection, valuation, validation, and risk analysis. Correspondent lenders participating in TQL can choose to insure and be covered for losses of up to $100,000 per loan. Underwritten by affiliates of Lloyd's of London and Liberty Mutual Group, the insurance policy protects lenders from losses due to borrower and appraisal fraud and regulatory noncompliance. For example, the policy covers a seller against claims based on misleading information related to income or assets, employment, and occupancy fraud, as well as collateral and valuation fraud. The coverage begins at the date of origination and is good for three years. The policy's coverage automatically transfers with ownership of the loan so any party who owns the loan may file a claim rather than force the loss back to the original lender. There is a cost to the lender for this coverage, which can be offset with lower loan loss reserves for insured loans. Ellie Mae receives an administrative fee for each closed loan covered under a policy. "Over the past several years, the GSEs and investors have put back approximately $100 billion worth worth of loans to originators," said Richard Roof, Ellie Mae's SVP of business development. "Our TQL program is a direct response to the industry's demand for increased quality assurance. It is designed to give investors and sellers greater confidence in the assets that are being originated." Based in Pleasanton, California, Ellie Mae is a provider of enterprise-level, on-demand automated solutions for the residential mortgage industry. STAT INSIGHT 150,033 Completed foreclosures in California for the 12 months ended in March 2012— more than double that of any other state. Source: CoreLogic DataQuick Adds Short Sales to Distress Tracker, Rolls Out Risk Valuation Tool San Diego-based DataQuick has added several content and performance enhancements to its RiskFinder Distress solution, including the ability to track short sales. Released earlier this year, RiskFinder Distress delivers a monthly tracking report detailing distressed property trends and statistics at the national and local level. Now, users can track short sales in addition to REO liquidation and auction sales. RiskFinder Distress also features an enhanced reporting interface. With customization features, users can make use of new metrics, layouts, and reporting technology to create detailed reports to meet their specific needs. "Short sales can make up as much as a quarter of all sales in a geography," said John Walsh, president of DataQuick. "With the addition of short sale tracking and more reporting into RiskFinder Distress, lenders, investors, and servicers have a valuable tool to evaluate their market or portfolio and make the decisions necessary to enhance profit or reduce risk." RiskFinder Distress also allows users to track and analyze key distress events throughout the life of a loan. This functionality provides investors and lenders with information to evaluate risk, determine the impact of distress sales on loss severity estimates, drive loss mitigation strategies, and follow markets that are starting to recover. DataQuick also rolled out a new valuation tool last month to help portfolio risk managers assess default and loss severity risk. CMV-Portfolio is a flexible, automated valuation tool that uses confidence scores and configurable business rules to optimize portfolio risk management decisions, the company explained. To give users more assurance in their portfolio decisions, each CMV-Portfolio property value is delivered with a confidence score, indicating the level of accuracy associated with the value together with a forecast standard deviation, which represents the probability that the CMV-Portfolio valuation falls within a statistical range of the actual market value, measured against a sale price. "It's not enough to just have a valuation attached to a property," Walsh said. "How

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