On May 4, 2022 Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. (ICE) announced that it entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Black Knight, Inc. (“the transaction”). This acquisition of the two largest mortgage technology/data/analytics vendors in the US mortgage market- and probably the world-is a watershed moment in US mortgage banking history.ICE’s $11.0 billion acquisition of Ellie Mae in 2020 is the largest mortgage technology acquisition to date; this announced $13.1 billion acquisition of Black Knight would be the largest mortgage technology acquisition in US mortgage history and create the largest US mortgage technology vendor in history.

This Celent report provides an initial assessment of:

•implications of the overlap of current ICE mortgage origination technologies with Black Knight loan origination technologies, data, and analytics products.

•what this means for financial institutions as technology buyers

•what this means for other mortgage technology/service/data providers.

•what new capabilities ICE can bring to market as a result of the acquisition.

•The strategic implications for the long-term structure of the US residential mortgage industry.

Given Celent’s focus on strategy-led technology assessment, this report will focus on technology products and market impacts, not on financial analysis, valuations, etc.