BenchMark Consulting International Launches 2003 Home Equity Lending BenchMark Program

Business Wire, May 19, 2003

Business Editors

ATLANTA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 19, 2003

Program to Measure Performance, Efficiency and Effectiveness

Supporting Industry Improvement

BenchMark Consulting International, a leading international management consulting firm to the financial services industry, has commenced its bi-annual Home Equity Lending BenchMark Program.

The program, which begins this month, will provide participating organizations with key findings in every area of lending operations and evaluates performance, efficiency and effectiveness against industry peers. Final results of the program will be released in October.

The program looks at every aspect of lending operations beginning with a participant profile which includes information on product offerings and delivery configuration, followed by application and vendor document processing, underwriting, document preparation, equity turnaround, account administration, collections and recovery. "In addition, we will be validating the latest industry trends such as the consolidation of consumer and mortgage servicing into the same servicing organization," said Jim Leath, consumer lending practice manager for BenchMark Consulting International.

The program allows participants to see the actual performance levels of other financial organizations, developing an understanding of the differences among those organizations and establishing realistic performance goals that justify the changes necessary to reach those goals.

"For 15 years, our programs have helped organizations realize the importance of change," said Randall Foster, president of BenchMark Consulting International. "We offer programs like the Home Equity Lending BenchMark Program to help lenders understand their performance and help participants learn from the experience, mistakes, information and revelations from the leaders in the industry."

The Home Equity Lending Program is designed to help quantify change impacts upon a business, including revenue and expenses. "The Home Equity Lending Program also provides participants with specific interpretation of results relative to BenchMark findings and other industry standards," said Leath. "It is our hope that in uncovering industry trends and methodologies, we will be able to help companies establish realistic and rational performance goals."

At the end of the program, BenchMark Consulting International will deliver both an oral and written presentation to each participant with performance rankings, workflow diagrams, technology utilization and department structuring. "By the end of the program, participants will know where their organization stands in relation to their peers, how it differs and what they can do to improve performance," said Foster.

Findings of the 2001 Home Equity Lending BenchMark Program revealed a rise in consumer preference for line of credit products vs. fixed term products, more demand on restrictive credit (higher booked FICO scores) and product offerings (less 100 plus loan to value products) and lenders believing they have auto decisioning capabilities when most have built auto recommendation functions.

There is still time for a limited number of lenders to participate in the program. Please contact Jim Leath for more information about the program. He can be reached via phone at 770.428.8899, ext. 4126, or via email at j-leath@benchmarkinternational.com.

About BenchMark Consulting International

BenchMark Consulting International has specialized in improving the financial services industry since 1988. The company is a management consulting firm that improves the profitability of its financial services customers through the delivery of management decisionmaking information and change management services to realize the benefits of business process changes. BenchMark Consulting International's expertise is in the designing, managing and measuring of operational processes.

As of 2002, the firm has worked with 19 of the top 20 (in asset size) commercial banks, all 11 automobile captive finance corporations, several of the largest consumer finance corporations and many regional banks throughout the United States. Internationally, BenchMark Consulting International has worked with the five largest Canadian commercial banks, more than 20 European organizations in eight different countries, in addition to financial institutions in Latin America and Asia.

The company is a wholly owned subsidiary of Fidelity National Financial, Inc., a provider of products, services and solutions to the real estate and financial services industries. BenchMark Consulting International has dual headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia and Munich, Germany.

For more information about the company, visit the Web site at www.benchmarkinternational.com.