Apex Lending Doubles in Size in Less Than One Year

Apex Lending attributes sudden surge in growth to Ellie Mae's Encompass loan origination solution

Dublin, CA—December 19, 2006—Ellie Mae, an award-winning provider of innovative software and services for the mortgage industry, has announced that Apex Lending, a top 20 branch organization based in Clearwater, Florida, has doubled in size largely as a result of implementing Ellie Mae's Encompass® Mortgage Automation System.

Currently, Apex Lending has over 900 loan officers in 300 branch locations nationwide. Prior to doubling its size to 900 loan officers over the course of one year, it had taken the company six years to reach 450 loan officers.

According to Steve Hays, president of Apex Lending, it's no coincidence that this incredible growth occurred soon after the company implemented Encompass technology in late 2005. "Our company had the potential to grow quickly but our previous loan origination system simply wasn't meeting our needs," explains Hays. "We required a system that would enable us to grow. It needed to help us with our immediate needs for compliance, branch control, and scalability."

Security and control were big issues for Apex Lending. "With Encompass, we can monitor all our branches since all data comes through our server. With our old solution, we had loan officers out there that were storing data on their hard drives, which is extremely risky and does not provide us any management control. We also had the problem that every time there was an update we'd have to go in and reconfigure settings manually, something we never have to do with Encompass. There was a lot of down time with those updates."

Encompass has equipped Apex with the kind of software necessary to grow and evolve. "We did a billion dollars in loans last year and Encompass accommodated our volume very well," says Hays. "We also have plans to become a full fledged mortgage banker, something that will enable us to lower our fees to our loan officers, and Encompass can support us through that transition with their new Encompass Banker Edition. It would be much tougher to transition to becoming a banker without this loan origination system in place."

Switching to Encompass was a well-thought decision. "When we set out to deploy Encompass we expected some level of resistance," explains Hays. "People don't like change. But we knew what was best for our brokers and we wanted to give them the tools to succeed. Thankfully, in no time we got great response to Encompass. It was amazing even to us to see how quickly people became big fans of the new system after they had used it."

Apex Lending and its brokers really appreciated the complimentary training offered by Ellie Mae. "It's been an amazing experience to work with Ellie Mae," adds Hays. "They offer free training and are so unusually accessible to lend support. It made the switch seamless and totally smooth. At Apex we pride ourselves in providing excellent customer service, so it's good to work with a technology provider that will help us follow through on our commitment."

Apex Lending is currently growing at roughly 100 new loan officers per month, and has no plans of slowing down. "We have lofty goals largely because of Encompass," says Hays. "In 2007, we hope to double our size again. We plan to add another 1,000 or more loan officers to the organization. We know we have the foundation that's conducive to that growth, and we couldn't have done it without Encompass. We pride ourselves in leveraging technology that really helps our brokers. We've also developed our own software to make nationwide loan origination even easier, and it interfaces with Encompass."

"There's no question that Apex Lending is on the fast track for growth," states Ellie Mae's chief strategy officer Jonathan Corr. "Their remarkable ascent in the industry is a tribute to management's dedicated efforts, foresight and execution. We're pleased to align with a company of their caliber and commitment. Encompass is the ideal choice for organizations that won't settle for anything less than the best."

Encompass, which has been deployed by over 13,000 companies and is used by over 130,000 users, is estimated to have over 30 percent share of the loan origination system market, and has been deployed by seven of the nation's top 10 brokerages and 135 of the nation's top 250 brokers.

About Ellie Mae, Inc.
Ellie Mae is an award-winning provider of software and services for the mortgage industry, which was recently named to the Inc. 500 list of America's fastest growing private companies. Ellie Mae provides a comprehensive line of products and services including the company's flagship Encompass® mortgage automation system, Contour™ and Genesis 2000® loan origination software, Encompass Websites™ for mortgage brokers, and Ellie Mae Docs™ services for document processing. Ellie Mae's ePASS® Network is the mortgage industry's online transaction platform enabling all mortgage companies in the United States to easily do business online with dozens of leading lenders and thousands of settlement service providers. Ellie Mae is based in Dublin, California. To learn more about Ellie Mae, visit www.elliemae.com or call (888) 955-9100.

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Ellie Mae, Encompass, ePASS, and Genesis 2000 are registered trademarks, and Contour, Executive Websites, and Ellie Mae Docs are trademarks, of Ellie Mae, Inc. All rights reserved.