"In total, 70% of our lender clients do wholesale lending," said John Walsh, president at Del Mar Database, San Diego. "In my perspective there are only three ways to increase wholesale market share: price, new products and customer service. We have several products that can help brokers increase customer service. As brokers look at technology they not only have to look at their technology but the lender's technology as well."

"Generally, the mega lenders provide brokers with better technology but worse customer service," he pointed out. "The other feature that's important in this area is the ability to expose the loan folder to brokers. That file does not go into a black hole with our product as the broker can track it online via a lender website."

Large net branches like Global Branch Solutions, Tampa, Fla., are also trying to be as transparent as possible to attract new branches and ensure that existing branches are successful. The answer for Global is the Global Loan Phone.

"What we're really trying to do is introduce a desktop capability to a telephone," said Scott Losch, chief executive. "The broker will have PC capabilities available through his phone. Starting with that premise we'll be rolling it out within 60 days. We've entered into a relationship with Cingular so that we don't have to totally recreate the wheel."

"The LO can pull from a database of all of our lenders to get a rate sheet for example," he said. "We hook the phones into Microsoft Exchange so he can get access to these rate sheets. Rate sheets are just one of the areas however; as he can also pull lock sheets to lock loans, register loans, converse with underwriters, etc. You can also text message real-time leads to the LO. In fact, lead generation was the original concept that was later expanded to include rate sheets and locking."

"Initially we'll roll it out to our branches," said Mr. Losch. "Having a branch network gives you an opportunity to try things out to see if you have something that will benefit the entire industry. We'll test it internally for now and roll it out later on."

Global has set up a master account so their branches can get discounts. Global will offer phones that range from under $200 to $400 for a PDA phone. Phones will include rate sheets, locking, leads, access to the Global Resource Center, e-mail access through Global's server, and with the higher-end PDAs, brokers could actually enter enough information to get an underwriting decision.

Regardless of the type of Web application, the trend is to release new software in a more user-friendly way to empower brokers to be more mobile, efficient and agile. The Web is here to stay and will be an important tool in keeping many brokers competitive in the coming down market.