American Association of Bank Directors Announces Strategic Alliance with Competix.com

Jan 4, 2001 — Bethesda, Maryland

The American Association of Bank Directors ("AABD") announced today that it has entered into a strategic alliance with Competix.com, which will allow its members' banks and savings institutions to offer cutting-edge on-line lending products to their customers.

Competix.com, based in Burlingame, California, is a leading provider of automated lending solutions to issuers of credit nationwide. With the World Wide Web playing a larger role in the banking industry, AABD's alliance with Competix.com will connect AABD members' banks and savings institutions to the newest trends in on-line lending.

Competix.com's Credit Manager uses the internet to provide financial institutions with any automated process for the full range of personal and small business loans. By automating the origination process of lending, the Credit Manager completes the entire loan transaction in minutes as compared to traditional systems that can take days or weeks. Once the user has filled out an application and hits the "submit" button, a decisioned response occurs in seconds. The lending institution can then automatically print the loan documents for the applicant to sign. Detailed information can be found at competix.com.

In addition, the system is fully customized to match each institution's own unique credit granting policies. Banks using the system are able to: book more loans without adding staff, reduce the risk of bad loans, improve customer service, and increase individual lender productivity levels. Unlike black box scoring tables, the system replicates banks best practices.

"Competix.com offers AABD members' institutions the most current technology in the lending industry", said Keith Dalrymple, AABD's President, and President and CEO of Vartan National Bank, Dauphin, Pennsylvania. "In addition, Competix.com has agreed to provide a 10% discount on their products to institutions whose Board of Directors are AABD members."

Peter Gilbert, Chief Operating Officers of Competix.com, has agreed to serve as AABD's Issues Advisor on internet-based lending issues and will provide expert advice to AABD's members on such issues through AABD's Web site, at www.aabd.org.

Credit Manager, Competix.com's Internet lending solution, is a turnkey credit decisioning service based on provide, state-of-the-art lending technology developed by American Management Systems, Inc., a $1.24 billion international information technology firm and Bank of Montreal, one of the largest banks in North America. The service supports a wide range of personal and small business loan products including installment loans, revolving credit lines, credit cards, mortgage loans, overdraft protection, home equity loans and indirect lending. Credit Manager is offered as a cost-effective alternative to traditional large-scale lending software and expensive hardware systems.

Founded in 1989, the non-profit American Association of Bank Directors is the only trade group in the United States solely devoted to bank directors and their information, education, and advocacy needs. The Institute for Bank Director Education was established in 1993 as the educational arm of AABD. Its purpose is to act as a clearinghouse for education programs designed for bank and savings institution directors that support the nationally recognized Director Certification Program.