Web-Services AccessWeb-Services Access

Security is often the top concern for companies that want to give business partners access to their internal systems. Mortgage lender Accredited Home Lenders Inc. thinks it has found a way around that challenge.

Next spring, the lender will make internal systems such as automated underwriting of mortgage applications available as a Web service to 4,000 independent mortgage brokers nationwide. The company already offers Web services based on internal systems to its 300 distributed account executives. It sees extending them to outside brokers as a way to capture more customers and revenue.

To help ensure the security of internal systems, CIO Jim Pathman had his lieutenants build a Web portal that offers account executives a set of accessible information sources and refers more-complex legacy application requests--such as applicant qualification review or automated mortgage underwriting--through Blue Titan Software Inc.'s Network Director. Network Director sets up a control point to inspect Web-service requests after they've come through the portal, applies access rules based on the inquirer's identity and privileges, and enforces security provisions.

With Network Director, the applications that underlie the Web services are loosely coupled to the portal. The result is that an appli- cation doesn't have to be up and running for a user's service request to go through. The app can handle the request when it's back online, or the inquiry might be handed off to another system that could respond.

Accredited hopes to eventually extend the portal to provide loan applicants with access to its systems via independent brokers' sites. "Maybe a customer who falls short on one loan tries out more possibilities," says Mike McCoy, Accredited's director of enterprise architecture. "The portal will be a conduit into our total product area."Accredited believes that will mean a higher capture rate of potential borrowers and quicker approvals of their applications.