ACB: Press Releases

Contact:	Robert Schmermund (202) 857-3104 Jim Eberle (202) 857-3145	Jim Eberle (202) 857-3145 (work) (703) 893-2593 (home) [email protected]	For Immediate Release February 11, 2002 #02-8
E-mail: [email protected]

AMERICA’S COMMUNITY BANKERS, FREDDIE MAC ANNOUNCE ALLIANCE TO EXPAND HOMEOWNERSHIP&NBSP;

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SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. ¡ª America’s Community Bankers and Freddie Mac announced today that they have joined in a strategic alliance to provide a bottom line benefit to community banks while helping them serve the housing needs of their communities.

The alliance will deliver new choices and enhanced benefits exclusively to ACB members, increasing member mortgage originations, providing new cash sales capabilities, enhancing servicer relations and reducing the lender cost of developing the Internet as a source of loan applications.

Freddie Mac Senior Vice President and General Manager for Community Lending Dave Stevens and ACB Chairman Curtis L. Hage announced the scope of the initiative at ACB’s National Real Estate Lending Conference here.

“This alliance will measurably benefit ACB member community banks by providing new and better tools to help them serve their customers and expand homeownership opportunities throughout their communities,” said Hage. He is also chairman and CEO, Home Federal Bank, Sioux Falls, S.D.

“We’re excited with the possibilities presented by this alliance agreement,” said Stevens. “Community-based mortgage lending has been, and will remain critical to homeownership growth in the years ahead. Freddie Mac believes that this alliance ©¤ designed with direct input from America’s Community Bankers’ member banks ©¤ will drive Freddie Mac’s value-added technologies, products and services deeper into our communities, making homeownership possible for more families, particularly for minority families.”

E. Lee Beard, chair of the ACB team structuring the alliance with Freddie Mac, said, “This alliance with Freddie Mac responds to requests from our members, who told us they needed more alternatives to efficiently access the secondary market and ensure attention to the unique needs of community bankers. Participating banks ©¤ and their customers ©¤ will reap the benefits of more products, more services, new technology and other advantages.” Beard is president and CEO, First Federal Bank, Hazleton, Pa.

Community bank participants will receive enhanced access to Freddie Mac’s technology features. Freddie Mac and MortgageBot will work together to help ACB members develop custom-built on-line origination tools that enable lenders to present their brand to potential mortgage customers and maintain their customer relationship in this emerging business channel.

In addition to the on-line component of the agreement, ACB members and Freddie Mac will work closely to increase cash sales of mortgages into the secondary market.

“As we’ve improved Gold Cash execution and Gold Cash Xtra processes, we’ve consulted with community lenders,” said Stevens. “We know that this is an important funding source for ACB members and we intend to continue to work with them to increase our business together.”

The alliance also provides ACB members with exclusive training opportunities on many Freddie Mac products and programs, especially in the areas of technology and affordable housing.

ACB President and CEO Diane M. Casey said, “This strategic alliance presents new opportunities for both community banks and Freddie Mac. The alliance builds on ACB’s efforts to make community bank members more competitive in the marketplace by giving them more choices and more support.” The program will be managed by ACB Partners, Inc.

America’s Community Bankers is the national trade association committed to shaping the future of banking by being the innovative industry leader strengthening the competitive position of community banks. To learn more about ACB, visit www.AmericasCommunityBankers.com.

Freddie Mac is a stockholder-owned corporation chartered by Congress in 1970 to create a continuous flow of funds to mortgage lenders. By supplying lenders with the money to make mortgages and packaging the mortgages into marketable securities, Freddie Mac sustains a stable mortgage credit system and reduces the mortgage rates paid by homebuyers. Over the years, Freddie Mac has opened the doors for one in six homebuyers in America and two million renters. (More information on Freddie Mac can be found on the company’s web site located at http://www.freddiemac.com.

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