SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, July 29, 2024 – MetaSource, LLC (“MetaSource”), a leader in MERS quality assurance (QA) and compliance solutions, published its annual MERS Quality Assurance (QA) Findings Report.
The report, which covers the top challenges MERS Members faced in 2023, improvements that were made despite a difficult year, and best practices for the future, takes a deep dive into how consolidation efforts have impacted MERS compliance.
Staffing Struggles Exacerbated by M&As
While concerns around staffing began surfacing in 2022, they increased significantly in 2023, with merger and acquisition activity playing a key role.
The MetaSource Team discovered that because of the uptick in consolidation efforts, many MERS Member employees were pushed into new roles and were forced to take on new MERS compliance responsibilities. As a direct result, the number of Members with sufficient quality assurance processes dropped substantially – so much so that MetaSource’s number one finding for 2023 was “Member did not have adequate quality assurance processes in place to satisfy requirements.”
Repercussions in the Form of Data Reviews
Data reconciliation was negatively impacted by staffing struggles in 2022. Although this past year didn’t yield as many reconciliation challenges as the prior, it was still an issue. In fact, many Members faced consequences early on in 2024.
According to MetaSource Executive Vice President of Mortgage Solutions Mary Walraven, the MetaSource Team observed a rise in data reviews set up by MERS.
“The increase [in data reviews] was really a result of reconciliation-related vendor responses in 2023,” Walraven said.
To learn more about the impact merger and acquisition activity had on MERS compliance in 2023, additional challenges Members faced, and the significant QA improvements the MetaSource Team noticed, download the full MERS QA findings report.
Download the 2023 MERS QA Findings Report