Black Knight‘s Optimal Blue product, pricing and eligibility (PPE) engine added a location-based pricing feature amid a slowdown in the mortgage market. The functionality expansion will assist investors and lenders in promoting affordable housing in underserved markets, the firm said.
The new capability automates the process of collecting census tract data to deliver applicable pricing premiums at the time of rate quote. According to Black Knight, the Optimal Blue PPE can support affordable housing in line with the Community Reinvestment Act, which requires the Federal Reserve and other federal banking regulators to encourage financial institutions to help meet the credit needs of communities in which they do business.
“This expanded functionality is part of Optimal Blue’s ongoing commitment to provide innovation that addresses the latest needs of the market, as well as the credit needs of low- and moderate- income neighborhoods,” said Scott Happ, president of Optimal Blue, a division of Black Knight.
Optimal Blue’s expanded functionality in its PPE follows a new feature rolled out for brokers and comes amid a drop in mortgage loan origination volume.
In May, the division added Quick Quote to its Loansifter PPE, enabling brokers to make accurate quote offers for products available to consumers. Loansifter PPE, a component of Black Knight’s suite of integrated solutions designed for brokers, allows searches across more than 120 wholesale investors.
Black Knight acquired Optimal Blue in July 2020 in a $1.8 billion deal to boost origination offerings. At the time of acquisition, Optimal Blue, founded in 2002, had about 1,000 originators and 185 investors using the firm’s PPE engine, which produced more than 240 million pricing quotes per year, the firm said.
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Optimal Blue, which has more than 213,000 users, supports more than $1.9 trillion in rate locks and loan trades annually, according to the division’s website.
The mortgage tech giant reported net earnings of $40.3 million, a 90% drop from the previous quarter’s $364.6 million due to a gain on the investment in credit report services company Dun & Bradstreet Holdings.
While Black Knight’s revenue climbed to $394.5 million, increasing 9% from the same period in 2021, the company said organic revenue growth slowed down to 7% from the previous quarter in line with the firm’s expectations of a downturn in the mortgage industry.
