Citizens Bank Forms Alliance with Mortgagebot.com to Provide Online Mortgage Lending Services for Clients

Business Wire, March 29, 2000

Business Editors

MILWAUKEE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 29, 2000

Mortgage Origination and Web-enablement Solution Helps Bank Provide

Online, Credit Verified Mortgage Loans

Mortgagebot.com, the nation's leading online mortgage provider as ranked by Gomez Advisors, announced today it would provide private-branded online mortgage services for Citizens Bank. Citizens' online mortgage solution is scheduled to be launched during the second quarter of 2000. As an application service provider (ASP) for Citizens, mortgagebot.com provides private-branded web-enablement and online mortgage origination for Citizens' mortgage loan business.

"Our top priority was to select a partner who could most effectively meet our clients' needs. M&I Corporation is well-respected as an Internet banking services provider. Through our partnership with mortgagebot.com, our clients can visit our Citizens Bank Web page, apply for a loan and receive a rate-locked commitment during a single online session of less than 15 minutes," says Bert Bojesen, senior vice president, Citizens Bank Mortgage Corporation. "We look forward to presenting the Citizens Bank version to our clients later this spring from our Web site: www.cbClientsFirst.com."

"As an application service provider for Citizens, mortgagebot.com delivers a fully configured, data-driven solution that allows Citizens to enter the revolutionary online lending marketplace with unmatched speed-to-market," says Scott Happ, president and chief executive officer of M&I Mortgage Corp. and mortgagebot.com. "Our scalable online lending operation combined with our brandable business-to-business mortgage technology solution makes mortgagebot.com uniquely qualified to assist progressive organizations like Citizens."

According to Bojesen, the system will provide a number of benefits to Citizens Bank's mortgage loan clients. "We were attracted to mortgagebot.com's cost estimating system. With this system, our clients will not have any surprises at the mortgage closing. In addition, mortgagebot.com's advanced credit scoring system will provide our clients with immediate results. The ability to obtain fast pre-approvals for our clients is also a key benefit."

Mortgagebot.com, the first online mortgage lender in the country to offer a true, credit-verified loan approval, provides a complete online lending solution on an outsourcing basis. As online mortgage originations are expected to grow to almost $250 billion by 2003, mortgagebot.com delivers its efficient direct-lender model to organizations seeking to enter the growing online lending marketplace through an application service provider (ASP) or business process outsourcing (BPO) partnership arrangement.

With both business models, mortgagebot.com delivers a fully-configured, database-driven solution that permits partners to enter the evolving online lending marketplace with unmatched speed to market. The company provides its leading-edge and award winning technology, as well as hosting services to its customers for both business models. With the ASP model, the partner administers the fulfillment process.

Under the BPO model, mortgagebot.com provides fulfillment and customer servicing capabilities to its partners on a private-branded basis. Mortgagebot.com's partner institutions are responsible for loan funding and consumer marketing, promotions and affiliations.

About mortgagebot.com

Mortgagebot.com (www.mortgagebot.com) is a division of M&I Bank FSB which is a subsidiary of Marshall & Ilsley Corporation (NYSE:MI), a $24.4 billion holding company headquartered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. A pioneer in the fast growing Internet mortgage lending arena, M&I Mortgage Corp. was the first mortgage lender in the country to offer true online approvals of first and second mortgage loans with its introduction of mortgagebot.com on October 5, 1998. Mortgagebot.com provides consumers instant, credit-verified mortgage approvals online in under 15 minutes. The company also provides its mortgagebot.com technology to other mortgage lenders as an application service provider or full business process outsourcing partner. M&I Mortgage Corp. was ranked the 29th largest retail first mortgage originator in 1999 by National Mortgage News. Recently, mortgagebot.com was presented with Inman's prestigious Innovator Award for the "Most Innovative Web Site or Internet Service: Lending" and ranked as the number one online mortgage site by Gomez Advisors, Inc., the leading provider of e-commerce research and analysis (www.gomez.com).

About Citizens Bank

Citizens Banking Corporation is a diversified financial services company providing a full range of commercial, consumer, mortgage banking, trust and financial planning services to a broad client base. Citizens operates 229 branch, private banking, and financial center locations in Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, and suburban Chicago, Illinois. Detailed information on Citizens can be retrieved by accessing the Company's Web site at www.cbClientsFirst.com.