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Accenture Launches Mortgage Post-Closing Business Process Outsourcing Service at First National Bank of Arizona;
Project employs first end-to-end solution for this part of mortgage process

PHOENIX, Ariz.–24 May 20074 – First National Bank of Arizona has awarded Accenture (NYSE: ACN) the mortgage industry’s first-ever end-to-end post-closing business process outsourcing (BPO) assignment. The Accenture service combines personnel, process and technology to fully automate this part of mortgage fulfilment. Financial terms of the two-year contract were not disclosed.

“Accenture will provide the bank with file-room services including imaging to convert paper documents into electronic form, indexing to capture relevant information in digital form, workflow services to speed processing, performance metrics spanning the process, and data and document review to confirm that loans have met underwriting, servicing and secondary-market salability requirements.

Accenture will deliver the service both onsite and through its Global Delivery Network, which includes more than 40 centers in 30 cities around the world. Accenture will also utilize proven on-demand technology for mortgage-industry imaging, application integration and business process management from Epitome Systems, Inc.

Accenture’s post-closing BPO services are designed to help First National Bank of Arizona reduce costs, improve processing speed, increase process efficiency and enhance the usefulness of loan information. The bank, which is one of the largest originators of home mortgages in Arizona, is seeking to continue to grow efficiently in this area while enhancing the quality of its loan fulfillment to better leverage servicing and secondary market opportunities.

"First National Bank of Arizona is committed to its mortgage customers, who deserve the best products and fastest service we can provide,” said R. Patrick Lamb, President of First National Bank of Arizona’s Mortgage Division. “Strategically outsourcing this part of the process to Accenture will boost our processing efficiency. At the same time, digitizing documentation will make our loans more attractive to mortgage investors and loan service’s. Additionally, as mortgage volumes decline nationally, shifting to a variable cost-per-loan model allows us to better manage costs.”

Ted Landis, an Accenture senior executive who leads the company’s North American credit practice and the mortgage BPO business, said the assignment will leverage Accenture’s technology skills and industry experience to create the first completely automated mortgage post-closing process.

Post-closing mortgage processing is a black hole for originators today because of the huge volumes of paper and the need for many people to shuffle and review that paper,” Landis said. “Digitizing this material opens significant opportunities in other parts of the processing value chain. Additionally, when originators are looking to better match lower mortgage volumes and expense, outsourcing can provide a variable and more predictable cost.”

“Enterprise content management, integrated document management and enterprise application integration have evolved into a new market called Enterprise Productivity Management (EPM),” said William Bangert, global head of Gartner Consulting’s Strategic Sourcing Practice. “EPM is fast becoming a strategic productivity tool used to achieve critical business objectives such as the ability to quickly enable compliance, realize insourcing and outsourcing requirements, and support real-time decision making."

About First National Bank of Arizona
First National Bank of Arizona is the largest privately-held, family-owned banking institution in the Southwest. Headquartered in Scottsdale, it has more than 1,000 local employees and combined assets in excess of $4.0 billion. FNBA has 14 retail banking branches in the state, provides a full array of business and personal banking services and is a mortgage lender in 49 states. The bank was named as Arizona’s #1 Bank in 2007 for the second year in a row in the Ranking Arizona survey. For more information: www.fnbaonline.com.

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About Accenture
Accenture is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company. Committed to delivering innovation, Accenture collaborates with its clients to help them become high-performance businesses and governments. With deep industry and business process expertise, broad global resources and a proven track record, Accenture can mobilize the right people, skills and technologies to help clients improve their performance. With more than 152,000 people in 49 countries, the company generated net revenues of US$16.65 billion for the fiscal year ended Aug. 31, 2006. Its homepage is www.accenture.com..

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Press Contact:

Rebecca Devine
Maven Communications
Tel: 267-546-9009
rdevine@mavenagency.com

Joe Krakoviak
Accenture
917-452-2406
Joe.Krakoviak@accenture.com

Diane Roberts
First National Bank of Arizona
480-458-2630
DRoberts@FNBAonline.com

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