The MISMO (Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization) coalition of mortgage industry groups led by the Mortgage Bankers Association of America has recently published version 1.1 of the MISMO XML Data Standards. The specifiations cover secondary pooling and delivery transactions and credit, underwriting, mortgage insurance application, and real estate service request processes. Specifications provided for the six process areas (Credit Reporting, MI LoanBoarding, MI Application, Secondary, Service Ordering, Underwriting) include in each case a supporting data dictionary and two versions of the XML DTD. The new standards "will allow real estate finance companies to more easily share data over the Internet. MISMO is continuing the process of collecting, normalizing, and defining all of the data elements necessary for effectively conducting business in the various real estate finance process areas, and will issue additional standards in the coming months. The data dictionaries and document-type definition files for several process areas, including servicing-servicing transfer, mortgage application, flood, title, and real estate appraisal, are now in draft status. MISMO was formed in January 2000 to address electronic commerce issues in the mortgage industry, and is comprised of MBA members, technology companies, and key industry players such as Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae."

From the web site project description:

"The goals of MISMO are to provide a single repository of XML DTDs for use in real estate finance transactions. Subsequently, MISMO will maintain an open and democratic approach to developing and changing these standards. We will also speed the maintenance and change process by using virtual technologies in order to account for the faster development pace allowed by the growth of technology. MISMO will support the development and maintenance of XML DTDs/Schemas from origination through servicing. It will provide a vendor-neutral environment whereby organizations developing in XML can obtain industry feedback on their efforts and MISMO will be the point of contact for other industries interested in conforming to the MBA standard. This standard will be distributed freely for the industry to use via the MISMO web site."

"In order to develop and maintain these standards, MISMO works in an interactive community using the latest technologies on the web. Workgroup listserves keep interested organizations up to date on MISMO activities. Virtual discussions on the business elements, architecture and relationships are occurring in real time on MISMO's on-line workrooms. MISMO subscribers can take advantage of their ability to steer the direction of the standard through on-line voting. These ballots for proposed changes to the architecture ensure a fair and democratic process. A Governance Committee, elected from a cross section of the industry, oversees the administration and policy issues surrounding the MISMO standard. The MBA Technology workgroups address the details of the data through the online community and three face-to-face meetings per year. Through an open and democratic process, we deliver a common format for electronic commerce development. Wielding the support of the MBA and many prominent companies, MISMO is poised to be the principal standards body for the real estate finance industry."