by George Opelka, SVP

Last week must have been National XML Awareness Week as we were inundated with calls about delivering files to lenders in an XML or MISMO format. Apparently a few lenders have sent out E-Mails in order to alert appraisers about Fannie Mae’s appraisal delivery system which is officially named Collateral Data Delivery (CDD). Lenders will provide appraisal data to the CDD via a web-based system.

Great news for ACI appraisers as Fannie Mae has approved ACI XML as an accepted delivery standard for the CDD. In the event any of your clients are asking you to deliver your appraisals in an “XML” format per Fannie Mae, we are adding this functionality as an add on to our ACI 2010 software. This delivery protocol will be accommodated through our existing eServices plug-in which means zero learning curve for the majority of our users.

You may be wondering what the heck is an XML file? You can think of XML as a raw data file that contains information from the appraisal report excluding the form image. The reason that you have been asked to deliver an XML file is because your lender client is probably going to sell the loan to Fannie Mae, and as part of their Loan Quality initiative, Fannie Mae will require both a PDF of the appraisal report along with an XML file. The XML can be further analyzed as part of Fannie Mae’s loan quality program.

Keep in mind there are many different flavors of XML. Fannie Mae is accepting ACI-XML as well as a version of XML that was developed by the Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization (MISMO), a not-for-profit subsidiary of the Mortgage Bankers Association. Per Fannie Mae, “effective on a date to be announced, but no earlier than July 1, 2010, for each loan delivered to Fannie Mae, sellers must submit electronic appraisal data in an acceptable XML format at least 24 hours prior to delivery of the loan to Fannie Mae.”

Do you need to do anything today? You may want to contact sales to confirm that your eServices subscription is current. In order to get ready to deliver to CDD, you can tell your clients with confidence that ACI, your software vendor, is an accepted delivery standard for Fannie Mae’s CDD platform. We’ll continue to keep you posted as any new developments unfold.