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ALLTEL and Ford Credit Team to Develop Finance Software

9 December 1998

ALLTEL and Ford Credit Team to Develop Automotive Finance Software

    LITTLE ROCK, Ark., Dec. 8 -- ALLTEL announced
today that it has formed a strategic alliance with Ford Credit to develop
market-leading systems for automotive finance.  ALLTEL and Ford Credit jointly
will develop application software to support retail, lease and wholesale
financing.
    The applications that will be developed from the multi-year agreement
represent a significant expansion of ALLTEL's current relationship with
PRIMUS, Ford Credit's automotive financial services subsidiary that serves
dealers and customers outside the Ford franchise system, and with Fairlane
Credit, Ford Credit's specialty finance affiliate.
    These applications will be designed for high-volume, low-cost operations
to meet the demands of a rapidly growing market.
    At the heart of this development is ALLTEL's Advanced Loan System (ALS), a
retail lending application chosen by more of the top 100 U.S. banks than any
other single vendor application.  ALS allows financial organizations to create
loan products and introduce them quickly.
    The ALS application will be further enhanced with additional specific
parameters and modules designed for the automotive financing industry,
including adding specific functionality to support automotive lease
processing.  Both ALLTEL and Ford Credit are committing significant resources
to this project to ensure that results will provide state-of-the-art
flexibility and functionality in financing and leasing.
    "A project of this size and scope requires the best IT (information
technology) and automotive financing minds, and no one single company can do
it alone," said Ken Coates, Ford Credit executive vice president.  "That's why
we chose to partner with ALLTEL, which has a proven record in providing
financial services software to our PRIMUS organization and many other
companies."
    "We're pleased that Ford Credit, a leader in its own industry, has
recognized us as the leader in delivering solutions to the automotive finance
industry," said John Wolf, managing director for automotive finance at ALLTEL.
    Ford Credit is the world's largest company dedicated to automotive
finance, providing financial services to dealers and more than 8 million
automotive retail customers in 36 countries.  A wholly owned subsidiary of
Ford Motor Company , it has assets of more than $140 billion in its
worldwide-managed operations.
    ALLTEL Information Services, with customers in 48 countries, provides
information processing management, outsourcing services and application
software to the financial, mortgage and telecommunications industries.
    ALLTEL is a customer-focused information technology company that provides
wireline and wireless communications and information services.