Lending Players to Create Standards for Commercial Loan Space

This fall, players in the lending space joined forces to create the Open Loan Technology Standards Working Group (OLTS), whose mission is to establish open standards in the commercial lending area. The OLTS will work to develop uniform processes to enable the transfer of data and documents throughout the loan life cycle in a seamless manner, according to Ken Katz, Loan IQ product manager, Misys Banking Systems (London), which is one of the OLTS charter members. "The Open Loan Technology Standards Working Group hopes to introduce efficiencies to the market that no single company can deliver independently," Katz explains.

Katz and others in the industry argue that the introduction of standards will enable lenders to create more automation in the pursuit of straight-through processing (STP) in their commercial loan practices. "The use of open standards in the area of data and document transmission is the most efficient way to create a straight-through processing environment for the commercial loan market," contends Katz.

Some of the group's goals include the creation of distribution protocols and application programming interfaces for seamless transmission of loan information, authentication protocols to enable single-sign-on to any part of the information supply chain, and a taxonomy for the cataloging of documents and data, according to the organization. At this time, the OLTS has no plans to address the consumer lending space.

In addition to Misys, other OLTS charter members include The Bank of New York (New York), JPMorgan FCS Corp. (Dallas), Intralinks (New York) and Trade Settlement (New York). --M.B.