Fitch Affirms Ocwen's Resi and Special Servicer Ratings.NEW YORK New York, state, United StatesNew York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of -- Fitch Ratings Fitch Ratings An international rating agency for financial institutions, insurance companies, and corporate, sovereign, and municipal debt. Fitch Ratings has headquarters in New York and London and is wholly owned by FIMALAC of Paris. affirms Ocwen Financial Corporation's (Ocwen) 'RPS2' residential primary servicer rating for subprime mortgages and its 'RSS2' residential special servicer rating. The ratings are based on Ocwen's solid capabilities in loan administration and default management, comprehensive servicing technology, established training programs, and effectiveness in servicing nonperforming loans and liquidating real estate owned Real Estate Owned Property owned by a lender - usually a bank - after an unsuccessful sale at a foreclosure auction. This is common because most of the properties up for sale at these auctions are worth less than the total amount owed to the bank: the minimum bid in most assets. As of Sept. 30, 2006, Ocwen serviced over 445,000 loans totaling $50 billion, an increase of 36.5% in loan count and 38.9% in unpaid principal balance from 326,000 loans totaling $36 billion as of June 30, 2005. The portfolio is comprised of $39.5 billion of subprime loans, with the balance consisting of conforming, Alt-A, FHA/VA and high loan-to-value loans. Ocwen currently has four servicing sites located in West Palm Beach and Orlando, FL, and Bangalore and Mumbai, India. Since Fitch's prior review, Ocwen reconfigured its Interactive Voice Response (IVR (Interactive Voice Response) An automated telephone information system that speaks to the caller with a combination of fixed voice menus and data extracted from databases in real time. ) unit to provide more customer self-fulfillment options, including full Spanish functionality and the ability to make payments by phone and request payoff quotes for loans that are less than 59 days delinquent; enhanced call routing and prioritization for incoming calls; and created a specialized group to focus on early payment defaults using manual calling campaigns and a door knocker door knocker n → aldaba service in cases where the company is unable to contact the borrowers. Ocwen continues to develop its interactive agent scripting for customer service and collections calls. In addition, Ocwen set up a dedicated disaster recovery site in India and completed initial application recovery testing In software testing, recovery testing is the activity of testing how well the software is able to recover from crashes, hardware failures and other similar problems. for servicing related systems with no significant issues noted. Ocwen continues its efforts to resolve its outstanding litigation An action brought in court to enforce a particular right. The act or process of bringing a lawsuit in and of itself; a judicial contest; any dispute. When a person begins a civil lawsuit, the person enters into a process called litigation. . To date, the company has been successful in resolving some of the lawsuits and continues to work to have the remaining cases dismissed, consolidated, or moved to more favorable venues. Fitch takes these charges very seriously and will continue to monitor the company's legal situation in order to evaluate any potential impact on Ocwen's loan servicing and operational capabilities. If at any time Fitch determines that Ocwen no longer meets the requirements of a servicer at its current rating level, Fitch will take immediate and definitive action with regard to Ocwen's servicer ratings. Fitch rates residential mortgage primary, master, and special servicers on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being the highest rating. Within some of these rating levels, Fitch further differentiates ratings by plus (+) and minus (-) as well as the flat rating. For more information on Fitch's residential mortgage servicer rating program, please see Fitch's report, 'Rating US Residential Mortgage Servicers', dated Nov. 29, 2006 on Fitch's website at www.fitchratings.com. Fitch's rating definitions and the terms of use Terms of Use are rules set up by the owner of an intellectual property or service to govern how they may be legally used. In many cases, terms of service are used as a contractual agreement between a company and users of a service they provide. of such ratings are available on the agency's public site, www.fitchratings.com. Published ratings, criteria and methodologies are available from this site, at all times. Fitch's code of conduct, confidentiality, conflicts of interest, affiliate firewall, compliance and other relevant policies and procedures Policies and Procedures are a set of documents that describe an organization's policies for operation and the procedures necessary to fulfill the policies. They are often initiated because of some external requirement, such as environmental compliance or other governmental are also available from the 'Code of Conduct' section of this site. |
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