MERS became an issue when the financial meltdown became obviously connected to your mortgage. Whether you pay yours or are foreclosed, MERS is almost certainly involved if you bought a home between 2004 and the present. It is a bank-industry creation designed to circumvent your local court house and recording of deeds (in a nutshell) and creates ownership/title problems--like, who has the power to foreclose? Who gets to be first in line at the bankrupcy? Who actually has the deed and the mortgage responsibility.
MERS has been losing in court lately and the implications are (and always were) enormous.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/02/business/fair-game-mortgage-registry-muddles-foreclosures.html?_r=0and
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/07/maine-supreme-court-hands-major-defeat-mers-mortgage-registry.html