ATPR Releases Whitepaper on Third-Party Due Diligence

February 16, 2016

 Texas-based ATPR Inc., a provider of technology based solutions for the real estate and settlement services industry, has completed a new whitepaper that provides considerations for lenders or servicers tasked with building out robust third party due-diligence platforms for compliance purposes. The whitepaper provides an overview of such a platform and describes in some detail one of its key pillars.

“Part of an effective due diligence program is to double check the accuracy of your third party vendors, scoring them on their ability,” said Alok Datta, president of ATPR. “Over a very short period of time, those firms that cannot deliver a quality product will be revealed. Companies that do not create robust third party due diligence systems run the risk of failing to identify bad actors before federal regulators do, which can be very costly.”

According to Datta, by working with a vendor who can quickly provide detailed and cost-effective property reports, the lender or servicer can perform due diligence on their third party vendors on a regular basis. These reports will reveal vendors who cannot meet the new compliance requirements, thereby helping the buyer consolidate their vendor network. In addition, the information reports will provide an easy method to score vendors, allowing the buyer to better rank them, ATPR said in a release.

This has never been more important, as an independent industry expert points out.

“Lenders have always had two choices in managing third-party vendors: Do it yourself, or hire someone else to do it," said Jeff Schurman, former director of the Title and Appraisal Vendor Management Association (TAVMA), and now an independent industry consultant and best practices trainer with Qualmodal LLC. “Now with increased regulatory oversight, higher costs and increased focus on overall quality—including the quality of vendors’ policies and procedures—vendor management has become one of the most critical parts of the compliant enterprise.”


Contact ALTA at 202-296-3671 or communications@alta.org.