Fidelity National Information lays off 35 workers

[thelakelander]

Fidelity National Information Services Inc. cut 35 jobs Tuesday and said more pink slips could follow in the next couple of weeks, as the Jacksonville-based company feels the pinch of the nation’s mortgage market collapse.

http://news.jacksonville.com/justin/2008/04/09/fidelity-national-information-lays-off-35-workers/

[Midway ®]

Actually, they mainly process foreclosures, not mortgages.  There was some negative press about them last week, maybe that has had some effect on them.

And note that they are NOT affiliated with Fidelity Investments.

[Steve]

Correct-sort of.  FIS handles all mortgage transactions, from Origination to Default.  A significant percentage of mortgages in America (in excess of 50% I believe) see FIS software sometime in their life.

I don't believe the press in the NY Times had anything to do with this.

[Lunican]

Here is the NY Times article that Fidelity was featured in.

Foreclosure Machine Thrives on Woes

Fidelity National Default Solutions, a unit of Fidelity National Information Services of Jacksonville, Fla., is one of the biggest foreclosure service companies. It assists 19 of the top 25 residential mortgage servicers and 14 of the top 25 subprime loan servicers.

Citing “accelerating demand” for foreclosure services last year, Fidelity generated operating income of $443 million in its lender processing unit, a 13.3 percent increase over 2006. By contrast, the increase from 2005 to 2006 was just 1 percent. The firm is not associated with Fidelity Investments.

Full Article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/30/business/30mills.html

[second_pancake]

The software side of that is sure to follow.  While the Default Solutions is a portion of FIS, the information side that runs the software relies on mortgage companies.  The software is used to service mortgages from origination to REO.  I've worked for various mortgage companies throughout Jax, all of which used at least a portion of the products offered by FIS (otherwise known as Fidelity, MSP).

When you have mortgage companies filing BK or outsourcing their servicing to 3rd party agencies, Fidelity no longer has a client.  With no clients, well, you have no business.

Granted, I don't see this happening since they have a huge client in Bank of America who seems to keep Fidelity out of the woods from time to time, but they have areas within the business that will definitely take a hit. Namely, the consulting and client support areas.

[adamh0903]

The software side of that is sure to follow.  While the Default Solutions is a portion of FIS, the information side that runs the software relies on mortgage companies.  The software is used to service mortgages from origination to REO.  I've worked for various mortgage companies throughout Jax, all of which used at least a portion of the products offered by FIS (otherwise known as Fidelity, MSP).

When you have mortgage companies filing BK or outsourcing their servicing to 3rd party agencies, Fidelity no longer has a client.  With no clients, well, you have no business.

Granted, I don't see this happening since they have a huge client in Bank of America who seems to keep Fidelity out of the woods from time to time, but they have areas within the business that will definitely take a hit. Namely, the consulting and client support areas.

I have some family that works in IT over there.