MISMO Announces Alliance with FHA

January 27, 2007

MISMO, a subsidiary of the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA), has formed an alliance with the Federal Housing Administration (FHA). The purpose of the Alliance is the development and publication of government standards relating to data and electronic mortgage transactions involving government entities within the MISMO framework and utilizing the MISMO infrastructure.

FHA will join MISMO's Government Housing Workgroup(s) which are in the process of being developed with the help of Ginnie Mae, whom MISMO allied with last fall. By having future FHA reporting and data formats in alignment with established industry standards, and providing FHA with a robust forum in which to develop its formats and interface specifications, this is a “win-win” for both the industry and FHA.

“We are extremely pleased to have established this agreement with FHA,” said Doug Duncan, President of MISMO and Chief Economist & Senior Vice President of Research and Business Development at MBA. “MISMO, and MBA, feel confident that this will result in significant benefits to the mortgage industry as a whole.”

“This alliance is consistent with this Administration's efforts to encourage federal agencies to adopt industry standards developed by a public-private collaborative process,” said FHA Commissioner Brian D. Montgomery. “We look forward to working with MISMO and expect this experience to be very productive.”

It is anticipated that members of the Government Housing Workgroup(s) will include representatives of interested government entities (starting with Ginnie Mae and now FHA) and private sector companies. The structure and operation of the Government Housing Workgroup(s), and the rights and obligations of Government Housing Workgroup members, will be governed by MISMO's established policies and procedures. It is intended that standards proposed by the Government Housing Workgroup(s) will be consistent with existing MISMO standards, and Government Housing Workgroup standards will themselves be adopted as, and incorporated into, MISMO standards, in accordance with MISMO's normal processes and procedures.

With MBA's support and the support of its more than 165 subscriber companies and trade groups, MISMO is the premiere standards development body for the real estate finance industry. MISMO's mission is to develop eXtensible Markup Language (XML)-based data standards, eMortgage and related specifications, while operating in an open, transparent, and vendor-neutral environment. Promoting and achieving agreement between individual firms to use a common format for data and file interchange is MISMO's core goal.

Source: MBA


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