AMERICA’S COMMUNITY BANKERS AND FREDDIE MAC EXTEND NATIONAL ALLIANCE THROUGH 2009

Scottsdale, AZ – America's Community Bankers (ACB) and Freddie Mac announced today during ACB's National Real Estate Lending Conference & Marketplace that they have agreed to renew through 2009 an alliance agreement that is helping hundreds of ACB members compete for borrowers in an increasingly competitive mortgage market.

First announced in February 2002, the ACB-Freddie Mac alliance package provides member institutions with a suite of benefits including secondary marketing programs, customized training, preferential access to third-party vendors and Freddie Mac's proprietary mortgage technology and mortgage products – including Freddie Mac's increasingly popularHome Possible^SM mortgage suite for low- and moderate-income borrowers.

Paul Mullings, Freddie Mac senior vice president for Single Family Sourcing, said, "This outstanding alliance ensures ACB members will continue to have the muscle to protect and build their market share in an increasingly challenging market. Today's announcement reaffirms Freddie Mac's commitment to focusing on our customers by giving them the tools and options they need to compete and to make home possible in their communities."

William J. Kroll, ACB Business Partners, Inc.'s president and CEO, said, "We are proud of our partnership with Freddie Mac. Our member banks in the program tell us that they have enjoyed considerable savings through this alliance."

Benefits of the alliance with Freddie Mac to ACB members include:

Preferential access to bank-branded website technology used to originate mortgages and quickly underwrite them with Freddie Mac's Loan Prospector® automated underwriting service.

Savings on private-label subservicing for lenders who want to originate mortgages without the cost of new servicing operations.

Competitive alliance cash loan selling executions.

Exclusive training sessions on many Freddie Mac products and solutions, like Home Possible^SM, that help sellers reach today's new borrowers

Freddie Mac is a stockholder-owned corporation established by Congress in support of homeownership and rental housing. Freddie Mac purchases single-family and multifamily residential mortgages and mortgage-related securities, which it finances primarily by issuing mortgage passthrough securities and debt instruments in the capital markets. Over the years, Freddie Mac has made home possible for one in six homebuyers in America and more than two million renters across America.

America's Community Bankers is the member driven national trade association representing community banks that pursue progressive, entrepreneurial and service-oriented strategies to benefit their customers and communities. To learn more about ACB, visit www.AmericasCommunityBankers.com.

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