Fannie Mae and First American Financial to Provide Lenders with Electronic Access to More Products on MORNETPlus Network; Appraisals, Flood Certificates, and Title Insurance in Offering

Business Wire, Dec 21, 1999

Business Editors/Hi-Tech Writers

WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 21, 1999

Fannie Mae (NYSE:FNM), the nation's largest source of financing for home mortgages, and The First American Financial Corporation (NYSE:FAF) today announced that they have reached an agreement to provide lenders with electronic access to First American's products and services over Fannie Mae's MORNETPlus Network.

Mortgage lenders across the nation will be seamlessly connected to First American's products and services, and will be able to request and receive title insurance, flood certifications and appraisals from First American's family of companies.

Today's announcement is another key component of Fannie Mae's "Open Access" initiative, which provides lenders with broader access to more services and service providers in one convenient location.

"Fannie Mae is committed to providing lenders with access to all the services they need to conduct business electronically. To that end, we're happy to offer lenders electronic access to the mortgage services that First American Financial Corporation provides on our network," said Earl Thomas Booker, III, Fannie Mae's vice president for technology marketing. "With the addition of First American, lenders will have more choices, more flexibility, and more efficiencies. By using the MORNETPlus network, lenders can access multiple automated underwriting systems and a wide range of additional mortgage transaction services and service providers to process all their lines of business."

Fannie Mae and First American will integrate their networks to provide electronic access to First American's suite of products and services.

The networks will leverage FASTDirect, First American's direct-connect solution, which will link MORNETPlus with First American's back-office production systems and allow for the delivery of First American's products and services directly to Fannie Mae's lenders.

"Mortgage lenders are an important segment of First American's customer base, and we are always looking for new technologies that will allow us to better serve them," said Donald A. Robert, executive vice president of First American Real Estate Information Services, Inc. "We are finding tremendous success with our multiproduct, e-commerce offerings. We are extremely pleased to have entered into this agreement with Fannie Mae which will also allow us to continue expanding our cross-selling opportunities, while improving efficiencies and streamlining the ordering process."

Fannie Mae provides access to a wide variety of automated underwriting services to lenders for conventional, jumbo, sub-prime, and government mortgages on its MORNETPlus Network through agreements with Countrywide, First Union, GE Capital Mortgage Services, GMAC/Residential Funding Corporation, Merrill Lynch Credit Corporation, PMI Mortgage Services, and Standard & Poor's.

In addition, lenders can access more than 200 credit reporting agencies, and several other technology tools over the MORNETPlus Network.

"We are already realizing value from Fannie Mae's Open Access initiative and look forward to having more choices on the MORNETPlus network from First American," said Barry Bier, senior vice president of GMAC Mortgage Corporation. "We are pleased to work with Fannie Mae and First American as they provide lenders with electronic access to the services and products necessary to close a loan."

Fannie Mae is a New York Stock Exchange company and the largest non-bank financial services company in the world. It operates pursuant to a federal charter and is the nation's largest source of financing for home mortgages. Over the past 31 years, Fannie Mae has provided nearly $2.8 trillion of mortgage financing for over 34 million families.

More information about Fannie Mae can be found on the Internet at http://www.fanniemae.com.

Style Usage: Fannie Mae's Board of Directors has authorized the company to operate as "Fannie Mae," and the company's stock is now listed on the NYSE as "Fannie Mae." In order to facilitate clarity and avoid confusion, news organizations are asked to refer to the company exclusively as "Fannie Mae."

The First American Financial Corporation, based in Santa Ana, Calif., is the nation's leading provider of business information and related products and services.

The corporation's three primary business segments include: title insurance; real estate information and services, which includes mortgage origination, mortgage servicing and database products and services; and consumer information and services, which provides home warranties; automotive, subprime and direct-to-consumer credit reporting; property and casualty insurance; property and automotive insurance tracking services; resident screening; pre-employment screening; lender-placed flood and hazard insurance investment advisory; and trust and banking services.

Information about the company and an archive of its press releases can be found on the Internet at http://www.firstam.com