Intercontinental Exchange to invest in Encompass' PPE

ICE Mortgage Technology is acting on plans to enhance the native product and pricing engine contained in the Encompass loan origination system.

That included rebranding the product to ICE PPE from EPPS.

Intercontinental Exchange was forced to sell the Optimal Blue business to Constellation Software in order to gain Federal Trade Commission approval for its purchase of Black Knight. (In a different but related transaction, ICE also sold the Empower LOS and related entities to Constellation; those are now part of Dark Matter, a separate company from Optimal Blue.)

But during the merger approval process, both companies argued that the native Encompass PPE was not as robust as Optimal Blue. Prior to the transactions, many Encompass users were Optimal Blue clients (or used another PPE) even with the internal functionality.

The Encompass PPE does not offer "post-lock automation, dynamic markups with custom margins, instantly available historical pricing, pricing concession approvals, and custom fields," a June 30 ICE and Black Knight federal court filing for "proposed pre-hearing findings of fact" stated.

Intercontinental Exchange is making significant investments into the ICE PPE and created an advisory group — consisting of both current users as well as those that use other engines — to help guide the process, said Ben Jackson, president of the parent company as well as chairman of ICE Mortgage Technology.

"I talk with mortgage industry professionals every day, and one thing they've made crystal clear is a pressing, growing need for a stable, accurate, well-capitalized loan product and pricing engine," Jackson said in a press release. "Margins have been compressed to historic lows, and we want to help our clients be in the best position to hold on to every possible basis point."

Intercontinental Exchange said it is committed to delivering a highly performant, intuitive solution that integrates seamlessly with Encompass along with the wider ICE housing finance digital ecosystem, which besides systems acquired from Black Knight and Ellie Mae includes MERS and Simplifile.

National Mortgage News has reached out to ICE regarding further details about its plans for the product and pricing engine.