Loan-Delivery Enhancements Benefit Schools and Lenders

Recent enhancements to the loan-delivery systems that support the USA Funds^® guarantee allow more flexibility for schools and lenders in administering their loan processes. USA Funds has outlined the following enhancements in prior issues of the USA Funds Education Access Report.

Enhancements for schools

• School-tracking-lender-approval query options allow financial-aid administrators to view the status of pending transactions on loans to be disbursed by a lender or lender-servicer outside of the Sallie Mae disbursing system.
• The Borrower Debt Management Information Service, which helps borrowers keep track of their student-loan indebtedness, now includes information from National Student Loan Data System and private-loan data to give borrowers a more-complete picture of their indebtedness. In addition, the Borrower Debt Management Information Service offers schools the option to request the rerun of borrower debt-management reports.
• School-customers have the option to view and print student-loan-counseling results within OpenNet Web Loan Delivery.
• Schools can request that school-certification requests for Federal PLUS loans not be sent until the borrower provides authorization for Electronic Funds Transfer and information about the loan period and the requested loan amount.

Enhancements for lenders

• Lenders and lender-servicers can view pre-claim and claim information through OpenNet for Federal Stafford and Federal PLUS loans guaranteed by USA Funds.
• The lender-approval queue allows USA Funds lender-customers that disburse their own loans to view, approve or reject their school-customers’ loan-change requests.
• USA Funds’ lender- and lender-servicer-customers have added ability to make borrower-demographic updates within OpenNet.
• The Guaranteed Federal Consolidated Applications report created for lenders and lender-servicers now includes a disclaimer for spousal consolidations.

Enhancements that benefit schools and lenders

• Financial-aid and lender staff can view change-explanation comments entered by users at their institutions when they perform loan- and-disbursement-level updates using OpenNet Web Loan Delivery.
• For Internet Explorer customers using OpenNet Web Loan Delivery or File Management System, the cursor automatically defaults to the first field on the login and search screens.
• School- and lender-customers that subscribe to the change-response service from USA Funds’ guarantor-servicer may request changes to data displayed in CommonLine modification-response records.
• USA Funds modified its process for generating response files for its school- and lender-customers associated with ELM. In cases in which the loan transmission comes directly from the school or lender, and the loan is not disbursed by USA Funds’ guarantor-service provider, USA Funds no longer generates and sends “courtesy” response files to ELM.

For more information about the fall-2005 enhancements, or to find out more about the technical products supported by USA Funds, contact your USA Funds Services representative.