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QuestSoft's HMDA RELIEF 7.3 Now Available;

Flagship Product Now Offers Enhanced Group Edits and Compliance Reports

LAGUNA HILLS, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)---- QuestSoft, a premier provider of Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) and Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) compliance solutions and geocoding services, announced the official availability of HMDA RELIEF 7.3, an upgrade of the company's flagship Windows(R)-based HMDA compliance software.

According to company officials, HMDA RELIEF 7.3 focuses on new features to aid in completion of this year's more complex HMDA reporting requirements. These features include more group edits, new reports, expanded import interfaces, fair lending fields and tools to reduce the time and effort needed to meet the new rate spread requirement.

HMDA reporting through traditional means (government software and LOS systems) has become twice the burden that it was in 2003. The number of data entry fields has almost doubled. In addition, many lenders have experienced difficulty in understanding new ethnicity and race codes. Compounding this additional burden has been the introduction of government mandated reporting of loan pricing information used to meet the rate spread requirement. HMDA RELIEF identifies and provides automation for each of these new problem areas. The result is that HMDA RELIEF users can accomplish in an hour or two what used to take weeks or months.

HMDA RELIEF 7.3 has added more than 30 new group edits to address all of the additional fields that have been added by the government for 2004. These new edits also address virtually every new challenge that lenders have been reporting both in the industry and to QuestSoft customer support personnel. Unlike other products, QuestSoft group edits detail in plain English the cause of data entry errors and HMDA RELIEF's recommended course of action based on the nature of the original error. The software then corrects these errors, if appropriate, at the rate of about 3,000 records per minute.

HMDA RELIEF 7.3 features new reports designed to exceed the functionality of government reports and address the complexity of analyzing a financial institution's performance under new HMDA codes. Not only have increased report capabilities been added to the software, but HMDA RELIEF 7.3 also incorporates colorful graphs for easy performance assessment by management, examiners, board of directors, and even an institution's marketing department if it wishes. The analysis reports present relative HMDA analysis data relationships and summary graphs in one report, making interpretation of performance less complex. The compliance solution's reports and graphs, which can be created based on a date range for convenience, could be used by marketing staff to identify customer trends and demographics, aiding in the development of marketing efforts or collateral. Additionally, HMDA RELIEF 7.3 has been updated with enhanced geocoding information and capabilities. Available in "manual look-up" and "batch" processing, geocoding searches can now check all zip codes associated with a city - even if an address is spelled incorrectly. All geocoding data contains the new 5-digit MSA/MD codes and will automatically convert the previous 4-digit MSA codes to the new data.

QuestSoft's HMDA software can also calculate low- to moderate-income (LMI) status based on the latest census tract data and display the median family income (MFI) value for audit verification. Using the optional outsourcing capabilities to TeleAtlas/GDT, HMDA RELIEF offers the exact same record-by-record accuracy of outsourcing software used by most regulators but at about one-third of the price.

"HMDA RELIEF has always been known for eliminating the pain of assembling and reporting HMDA data," said Leonard Ryan, president of QuestSoft. "With our emphasis on automation, our customers are now saving more time and money than at any time in our 10 year history. In addition, with more than 4,000 successful bank audits under our belt without a fine, the accuracy and features of the software offer a cost-effective compliance solution that can compete with anything else in the industry."

Current customers will receive a free automatic upgrade to HMDA RELIEF 7.3, and new clients, upon purchase, will begin processing compliance reports with the updated software.

About QuestSoft

Laguna Hills, Calif.-based QuestSoft is a compliance software development firm specializing in the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA), Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), flood determination and other settlement services to more than 1,200 banks, credit unions and mortgage companies nationwide. The company provides software design, compliance-quality geocoding and outsourcing services that are backed by 16 years of direct mortgage software and origination experience. In addition, the company has received recognition for its many technological accomplishments.

For more information about QuestSoft and its products, visit the company's Web site at www.questsoft.com.

For QuestSoft
Elizabeth Salter, 678-781-7224 or Chuck Meyers, 678-781-7204

10/21/2004 08:01 ET

 

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