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C&S Marketing Launches Upgrade to HistoryPro, Most Widely Adopted Mortgage Industry Collateral Scoring Tool

SAN FRANCISCO , Calif. , May 2, 2005 – C&S Marketing, the leading provider of collateral risk assessment and fraud prevention software and solutions for the mortgage industry, has unveiled an upgrade of its collateral risk scoring tool, HistoryPro™. The HistoryPro upgrade enables customers to accelerate their loan processing workflow through a simplified report interface, faster query response times, and a richer base data set. HistoryPro - already evaluating 45,000 loans per day and in use by 9 of the top 10 U.S. lenders - is proven to be highly predictive of overall collateral risk. 85% of the top 100 lenders currently use HistoryPro as a primary defense against fraud.

“C&S Marketing keeps us ahead of the fraud curve,” said Joe McKone, EVP and chief operating officer, First Franklin Financial. “As fraud perpetrators continuously refine their methods, our first line of defense is using a powerful product like HistoryPro, which ultimately increases our bottom line results.”

The HistoryPro proprietary risk assessment engine evaluates numerous elements to determine its industry pioneering F-score, including the relationship between foreclosures and price appreciation, the subject property sales price relative to the current appraisal or origination estimate, the origination value relative to the market, prior foreclosure(s) on the subject property and geographic conditions surrounding the subject property. In addition, HistoryPro references foreclosure and volatility models as well as overall performance studies to incorporate the most accurate data possible.

HistoryPro also includes subject property history detail, nearby property sales information, market data, and a buyers and sellers transaction summary. These features are combined with other analytical metrics to create an easy to use, information rich decision dashboard that uniquely equips lenders to more clearly identify and control collateral risk.

The upgrade to HistoryPro builds on a foundation of remarkable performance for the mortgage community. For example, one of the largest U.S. lenders reduced their collateral loss by over 90 percent within the first 18 months of adopting HistoryPro. Another leading sub-prime lender immediately isolated the most volatile component of its loan portfolio in which the fraud catch rate was 26 percent and the instance of delinquency was 200 percent greater than the control group.

By showing the likelihood of foreclosure for a property in a statistical score, HistoryPro allows lenders to save millions each year while increasing the confidence about the security of their loans. C&S Marketing recently conducted an analysis of 600,000 loan originations using subject address and property value, exposing 20 percent of properties in a single area involved in loan fraud, then predicting twelve-month loss estimates. The study also identified fraud rings, pinpointing where to tighten controls on third-party sellers.

“Fraud is on the rise, and its prevention is critical to the mortgage lending industry. Lenders must protect themselves by reconfirming a property’s collateral value and its risk potential. Early detection is the key,” said Steve Schroeder, CEO and co-founder of C&S Marketing. “We are constantly looking for ways to enhance our software to stay abreast of changes in fraud methods and uncovering fraudulent activities.”

About C&S Marketing
Sacramento, Calif. based C&S Marketing is the leading provider of collateral risk assessment and fraud prevention solutions to the mortgage industry. Since 1997 the mortgage industry has relied on C&S Marketing’s knowledge and information tools to enable risk decisioning and workflow process support. The C&S Marketing suite of property information tools provide the data, comprehensive geographic coverage, ease-of-use and accessibility the mortgage industry needs. C&S was ranked #17 on Inc. Magazine’s 500 fastest growing companies in 2004. For more information about C&S Marketing, visit www.csmarketing.com.

About First Franklin
First Franklin, with its executive office in San Jose, California, is the primary originator of nonconforming mortgage loans within the National City team. As a leading originator of residential mortgage loans and home equity lines of credit, First Franklin currently conducts business with more than 27,000 mortgage brokers and bankers and maintains more than 36 wholesale mortgage branches throughout the country. For more information, please contact Amy Witmer, VP of Marketing, 408-964-6000.

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