ALLTEL Forms Alliance With London Bridge Software; Venture Provides Complete Retail Lending and Servicing Offering - to market London Bridge Software Holdings' debt management software - Company Business and Marketing

Cambridge Telcom Report, Jan 17, 2000

ALLTEL announced Wednesday that it has formed an exclusive global alliance with London Bridge Software Holdings of London, England, to jointly market the London Bridge collection and debt management offerings. The alliance will provide financial institutions with an integrated consumer lending package that supports the entire retail loan and consumer finance process.

"With this addition to ALLTEL's consumer lending offerings, we have a complete suite of products -- all considered to be the best in the industry," said Susan Opitz, president of ALLTEL Information Services' financial services organization. "This packaged offering provides ALLTEL's clients with the ability to manage accounts from origination to servicing to accounting to collection through a single information technology provider."

The target market for ALLTEL's exclusive distribution agreement with London Bridge offerings includes retail banks and other consumer finance organizations. The majority of London Bridge's clients are located in Europe, North America and the Pacific Rim. The company also has clients in South America.

"ALLTEL has 30 years of experience in providing information technology services for financial institutions with many years of experience in integrating complementary software with its offerings," said Gordon Crawford, chairman of London Bridge. "The strength of London Bridge lies in its people and the expertise they hold in the area of credit risk management and will complement ALLTEL's lending offerings. We are pleased to be working with the leader in the consumer lending field.

"This alliance presents great opportunities for ALLTEL, London Bridge and the financial services market."

"The products and services offered by London Bridge, along with the list of clients it supports, make this a natural fit for our consumer lending offerings," said Jeff Fox, president of ALLTEL Information Services. "With the addition of this debt management system, we have improved our offerings for domestic and international financial institutions and finance companies."

Ten of the top 25 U.S. banks rely upon ALLTEL's systems for core account processing, and ALLTEL's Advanced Loan System is the retail lending application chosen by more of the top 100 U.S. banks than any other single vendor application. Additionally, more than 34 percent of the total dollar volume of outstanding U.S. consumer loans, including mortgages, is processed on ALLTEL's software applications.

ALLTEL Information Services, with customers in 55 countries and territories, provides information processing management, outsourcing services and application software to the financial, mortgage and telecommunications industries.

ALLTEL is a customer-focused information technology company that provides wireline and wireless communications and information services.