ALLTEL announced it has recently converted more than 8 million Ford Credit retail installment contracts/lease accounts to a single computing environment.According to the company, the conversion was completed in less than 16 hours, and included more than 365 million retail and lease history records.

The company says the system - ALLTEL's Advanced Lending Solutions-Auto Finance product - replaced multiple systems that previously handled Ford's PRIMUS and Ford Credit North America portfolios. ALLTEL is processing the portfolio at the company's Little Rock data center, giving Ford Credit a single software provider and processor for its receivable accounts.

Implementing to Six Sigma quality standards resulted in a record/transaction rejection rate of less than .000002, says the company.

"By any standard, converting this volume of accounts onto a single system in such a short timeframe is an extraordinary event," said Christine Pratt, senior analyst in the Consumer Credit Practice at TowerGroup. "One of the greatest challenges facing lenders today is managing customer information in an IT landscape populated by a multiplicity of mature, disparate processing systems. The success of a conversion of this size and complexity certainly raises the bar for other companies in this industry."

"A 'light-switch' conversion - where in the span of one day we migrate from multiple systems to one common platform - does not occur without significant planning and expertise," said Ernie Hawke, Ford Credit vice president. "Having a partner like ALLTEL, one familiar with the intricacies of large system conversion work, was invaluable in this process." The common retail installment contracts/lease platform was jointly developed by ALLTEL and Ford Credit to solve clearly identified business issues and deliver measurable business value.

"Ford Credit has been a focused, decisive partner throughout this process," said Jeff Fox, president of ALLTEL Information Services. "The combined ALLTEL and Ford team produced a successful, on-time, on-budget program that is a testament to the will and skill of both organizations. The business value of this project is key to the strategy of both Ford Credit and ALLTEL Information Services."

According to the company, forty-seven of the top 50 U.S. banks rely on ALLTEL Information Services' products and services. ALLTEL provides loan-servicing automation for more than 20 million mortgage loans, with balances exceeding $2 trillion. More than 34 percent of the total dollar volume of outstanding U.S. consumer loans is processed on ALLTEL Information Services' software applications.

Fidelity National Financial has announced plans to acquire the financial services division of ALLTEL Information Services and the transaction is expected to close before the end of the first quarter of 2003.

ALLTEL, with more than 12 million communications customers and nearly $8 billion in annual revenues, has communications customers in 26 states and provides information services to telecommunications, financial and mortgage clients in more than 50 countries.