Lender

The lender is the company or institution that provides the mortgage. After closing, a different company may send the monthly statements. That later company is the servicer, which may or may not be the same firm. A mortgage broker helps arrange a loan but is not, by that fact alone, the lender. The lender will not necessarily be the name a borrower sees on every application screen or in every workflow. Licensing systems such as NMLS record whether certain companies and individuals are authorized in participating states or federally registered. NMLS is context for how some firms are supervised. It is not a consumer definition of “lender,” and it is not true that every lender is state-licensed through NMLS.

Fannie Mae’s consumer glossary is the primary meaning: the party that makes the loan. NMLS/CSBS materials describe a licensing and registration system, not a universal lender definition. Depository institutions may register mortgage loan originators federally rather than hold a state mortgage-company license.

Lender profiles name an originating or reporting institution. Mixing that name with a servicer, a broker, or an NMLS ID produces the wrong entity.

A credit union originates Taylor’s mortgage. Six months later, a specialty servicer sends the statements. The credit union was the lender. The specialty firm is the servicer. An NMLS listing, if any, would describe licensing or registration—it would not rename those roles.

• Borrower
• Home Mortgage Disclosure Act
• Legal Entity Identifier
• Mortgage
• Mortgage servicer
• Nationwide Multistate Licensing System & Registry (NMLS)
• RSSD ID

• Mortgage servicer

NONE REQUIRED