Aames Financial Corporation Received Fitch Ratings 'RPS3-' Servicer Rating for Subprime Product

Business Wire, Sept 20, 2004

LOS ANGELES -- Aames Financial Corporation (OTCBB:AMSF), a 50 year old national subprime mortgage lender, announced that it received Fitch Ratings 'RPS3-' residential primary servicer rating for subprime product.

Aames's total loan servicing portfolio at June 30, 2004 was $2.3 billion, including mortgage loans serviced on an interim basis of $1.9 billion and mortgage loans in securitization trusts serviced in-house of $229.3 million at that date.

At June 30, 2004, Aames operated 99 retail branches, including the National Loan Centers, and five regional wholesale operations centers throughout the United States.

For more information, contact either Ronald J. Nicolas, Jr., Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, or Jon D. Van Deuren, Senior Vice President, Finance and Chief Accounting Officer, in Aames's Investor Relations Department at (323) 210-5311 or at info@aamescorp.com via email.

Additional information may also be obtained by visiting www.aames.net, the company's website.

From time to time the company may publish forward-looking statements relating to such matters as anticipated financial performance, business prospects and similar matters. The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 provides a safe harbor for forward-looking statements. In order to comply with the terms of the safe harbor, the company notes that a variety of factors could cause the company's actual results and experience to differ materially from the anticipated results or other expectations expressed in the company's forward-looking statements. The risks and uncertainties that may affect the operations, performance and results of the company's business include the following: increases in mortgage lending interest rates; adverse changes in the secondary market for mortgage loans; decline in real estate values; decreases in earnings from the company calling securitization trusts; limited cash flow to fund operations; dependence on short-term financing facilities; obligations to repurchase mortgage loans and indemnify investors; concentration of operations in California, Florida, New York and Texas; extensive government regulation; concentrated ownership of the company by a single stockholder; losses in securitization trusts; and intense competition in the mortgage lending industry. For a more complete discussion of these risks and uncertainties, see "Item 7. Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations - Risk Factors" in the company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended June 30, 2004 and subsequent filings by the company with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission.