Press Release

   
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 
Thursday, September 15, 2005 

For more information, contact:

PRBC^® and CircleLending Team-up to Assist Consumers
Build Credit with Private Mortgage Payments 


CircleLending to report mortgage payments to PRBC

Center for Financial Services Innovation supports partnership

Annapolis, Maryland -- PRBC^®, an innovative national credit bureau, today announced that CircleLending, a pioneer in designing products to manage interpersonal loans between relatives, friends, and other private parties, will report current and historical mortgage payment histories on behalf of the consumers in its mortgage servicing portfolio.

"Mortgage and apartment rental payments are the largest monthly payment that most consumers make," said Michael Nathans, Chairman and CEO of PRBC. "PRBC’s mission is to provide all consumers with an equal opportunity to demonstrate their fiscal responsibility with the monthly bills they pay. Making these big monthly payments on time should benefit consumers when they apply for housing, credit, insurance, utility hook-ups, cell phones, and employment, as they must be considered under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act when a traditional credit report is used. I am delighted that CircleLending is helping the borrowers in its mortgage servicing portfolio to demonstrate their fiscal responsibility by allowing them to enroll in the PRBC service."

A report entitled Credit Score Accuracy and Implications for Consumers, published in December 2002 by the Consumer Federation of America and the National Credit Reporting Association, concluded that payment histories were not reported to a credit bureau by the lender for approximately 33% of the consumers in their samples, in spite of consecutive on-time mortgage payments. The negative implications for these roughly 15 million consumers are that their credit scores are lower than they should be, and that they pay more for credit than they deserve to, thus greatly reducing their chances for building assets and financial security.

"I was introduced to PRBC by the Center for Financial Service Innovation (CFSI), when the Center selected both companies to showcase at BAI’s 2004 Retail Delivery conference," said Asheesh Advani, founder and CEO of CircleLending. "I was very intrigued with PRBC’s business model because it meets an important need for the borrowers in our servicing portfolio – building credit with their monthly payments. I am very pleased that PRBC enables our clients to build credit based on private loans. I am especially pleased that PRBC does not charge our borrowers a fee to view their own data, and it is important to us that PRBC does not sell the names of our clients to mailing lists, solicitors, or for research."

Jennifer Tescher, Director of The Center for Financial Services Innovation, likes the direction the PRBC-enabled CircleLending program sets for other non-prime mortgage servicers. "This approach allows people with low or no credit scores to establish or re-build their credit history. CFSI has invested in CircleLending and invited PRBC to again exhibit at BAI because they are promising business models for this market segment, both in their creative solutions and their partnership strategy. We share their commitment to improving access to credit and wealth-building opportunities for millions of responsible, potentially profitable, underbanked consumers."
 

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About CircleLending
CircleLending is a specialty loan administration company based in Waltham, Massachusetts. The company provides a full range of services for managing financial transactions between private parties. CircleLending is widely regarded as a pioneer in the financial services industry for designing products to manage interpersonal loans between relatives, friends, and other private parties. The company provides document preparation services, customized repayment schedules, billing and payment collection, and ancillary services such as year-end tax statements, mortgage recording, and web-enabled payment tracking. www.circlelending.com


About PRBC
PRBC, a national credit bureau with a community economic development mission, is supported with a grant from the Ford Foundation and by Tier I Data Subscribers that include Citimortgage, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac. PRBC is guided by an Advisory Board and a Technical Steering Committee that include consumer advocates, educators, faith-based leaders, and industry professionals. PRBC’s service is powered and secured by IBM, and can be accessed at www.PRBC.com.


About the Center for Financial Service Innovation
The Center for Financial Services Innovation, an initiative of ShoreBank Advisory Services, was founded in 2004 with support from The Ford Foundation. Its mission is to facilitate efforts to offer underbanked consumers across the economic, geographic and cultural spectrum asset-building opportunities that create value for both customers and companies. It provides funding and resources, enables partnerships, and develops and distributes authoritative information on how to respond to the needs of the underbanked both profitably and responsibly. CFSI works with banks, credit unions, technology vendors, alternative service providers, consumer advocates, and policy makers to forge pioneering relationships, products and strategies that will transform industry practice and the lives of underbanked consumers. For more on CFSI, go to www.cfsinnovation.com