Prime Alliance Implements Emerging Market Toolkit from Dexma

TUKWILA, Wash. – Prime Alliance Solutions is beta testing Dexma’s Emerging Market Toolkit that translates mortgage documents into the borrower’s native language, thereby allowing mortgage lenders to be more effective with lending to Latinos and other cultural groups. Initially, Emerging Market Toolkit from DEXMA, whose online mortgage application powers the Prime Alliance system, will allow Prime Alliance credit unions to send their borrowers a translated initial loan approval letter which list the conditions required to close the loan. Since Latinos are the largest minority in the U.S. and Prime Alliance members include several credit unions in states that have higher than average Latino population, the toolkit will be available first in Spanish and its cultural variants. Dexma is also working with a select group of document providers to translate initial disclosures and other mortgage documents. Dexma President Steve Mase explained that for the minority buyer, the total mortgage lending experience should be geared to their culture and language. “It’s not enough for the realtor and loan officer or broker to speak their language, and translated Web sites are virtually useless since few Latinos are online. The real problem is the fact that many important mortgage documents are lost in translation. Our goal is to enable Latino borrowers to review the details of their loan product and help them understand what they need to do to complete the transaction.” Prime Alliance President Joe Brancucci said it has always been one of the company’s objectives to help credit unions serve emerging low and moderate income markets. “To do that, we have to be able to get rid of obstacles that have prevented that in the past, such as differences in language,” he explained. Brancucci said once the first phase of the implementation is completed including translating all important loan documents to Spanish, Prime Alliance will test the toolkit to see what if any additional changes have to be made. Eventually, he said, Prime Alliance wants to use the Emerging Market Toolkit to translate documents in to the various Asian languages such as Chinese and Japanese, as well as French and other Spanish dialects. The rollout of DEXMA’s Emerging Market Toolkit as part of Prime Alliance Solutions will officially be announced at Prime Alliance Solutions’ symposium in May. At that time, Brancucci said a priority list will be drawn up by the Prime Alliance Advisory Group to determine which languages mortgage documents will be translated in to. “The other translations will be relatively easier to do because then we’ll have the architecture to do the translation,” said Brancucci, adding that Prime Alliance’s objective is to “evolve in to a site that culturally fits how credit union members perceive the mortgage process.” -