1 July 2009

In a first for Australia, RP Data today launched the use of a specialist mortgage fraud protection and loss mitigation platform – RP Data FraudMark.  Following successful trials, The Commonwealth Australia Bank (CBA) is the first bank to sign up for the new service.

RP Data CEO Graham Mirabito said, “As industry leaders and innovators we are constantly evaluating globally and investing locally in new ways to broaden our service offerings to meet changing customer needs.”

“Whilst mortgage fraud is low in Australia compared to most other countries, it exists and is growing. There are currently a number of incentives from government and lenders to assist Australians in their desire for home ownership. It is essential that genuine qualifying customers can access these incentives effectively and efficiently.” “The RP Data FraudMark solution allows mortgage lenders to speed up the mortgage application approval process of qualifying customers whilst protecting the bank and its shareholders from loss resulting from mortgage fraud and customer default,” he said.

Exclusively provided by RP Data, Australia’s largest property information and analytics group, the FraudMark solution is a world-leading mortgage fraud detection and loss mitigation tool used by major banks in the USA and the UK.

“Every year in Australia mortgage losses is in the hundreds of millions of dollars and it is growing.  Mortgage fraud is a significant and growing contributor to these losses.  The launch of this world-class risk, fraud and default detection tool will reduce the annual cost of loan processing and will be used to fight fraud.  This will result in further cost savings for existing clients and ultimately improved profitability to bank shareholders.”

“All banks work hard at minimising losses and CBA is the first to move swiftly to deploy this leading solution,” Mr Mirabito said.

Pioneered by BasePoint Analytics of Carlsbad, San Diego, and delivered to the market by RP Data in Australia in a joint venture initiative, FraudMark is designed to assist banks in the current economic climate.  For the first time, it is now available in Australia where fraud has become a sophisticated business for the wrong reasons by individuals and groups.  BasePoint is owned by First American Core Logic who is a 40 per cent strategic shareholder of RP Data.

Debra Rothrock, Senior Vice President of BasePoint Analytics, confirmed that FraudMark is proving to be extremely successful overseas with the largest banks in the UK, Canada and the USA reporting reduced losses since its deployment almost 2 years ago.

“FraudMark is a highly-efficient fraud tool that is capable of finding more than 50 per cent of all mortgage losses by pinpointing only 5 per cent of all applications,” she said.