New Century Financial Corporation (NYSE: NEW), a real estate investment trust (REIT) and parent company of one of the nation's premier full-service mortgage finance companies, today announced an aggressive new measure to stamp out mortgage fraud. The company has selected BasePoint Analytics to implement fraud prevention solutions and services that is designed to provide consumers additional protection against mortgage fraud by ensuring quick and accurate detection of fraudulent applications, while also improving overall loan production. The agreement will allow New Century to significantly improve its pre-funding fraud detection and prevention, while also reducing review costs for potentially fraudulent applications. Terry Theologides, Executive Vice President and General Counsel of New Century Financial Corporation, said, "New Century has always worked hard to detect and prevent fraud in the origination process, and our investment in deploying the BasePoint tools and techniques will allow us to better protect our customers from fraud and identity theft by enabling us to more easily identify and weed out fraud perpetrators and identity thieves in the marketplace. At the same time, these tools will allow us to maximize overall loan quality and profitability." BasePoint Analytics will provide New Century with FraudMark -- an application scoring solution that combines the predictive power of loan applicant data with the proven pattern-recognition analytics of BasePoint's fraud modeling technology. BasePoint Analytics will also provide fraud-consulting services that further refine existing fraud detection strategies and operations to take full advantage of the new fraud scores. "We chose BasePoint Analytics because we wanted to enhance our current strong controls with the latest advances in fraud detection methods for mortgage lenders, to the benefit of our customers, investors and the communities in which we lend," said Theologides. "We are extremely pleased to be working with a forward-thinking lender such as New Century," said Tim Grace, president of BasePoint Analytics. "Fraud in the mortgage industry is increasing at a dramatic rate, and it is the mission of BasePoint Analytics to provide the next-generation of fraud solutions to lenders such as New Century. We believe that integrating BasePoint's advanced pattern recognition technology with best-in-class fraud review processes and strategies will become the standard for the industry." About New Century Financial Corporation Founded in 1995 and headquartered in Irvine, California, New Century Financial Corporation is a real estate investment trust (REIT) and one of the nation's premier full-service mortgage finance companies, providing first and second mortgage products to borrowers nationwide through its operating subsidiaries, New Century Mortgage Corporation and Home123 Corporation. The company offers a broad range of mortgage products designed to meet the needs of all borrowers. New Century is committed to serving the communities in which it operates with fair and responsible lending practices. To find out more about New Century, please visit http://www.ncen.com. About BasePoint Analytics BasePoint Analytics, based in Carlsbad, Calif., is a fraud analytics and consulting company serving the financial services market. BasePoint Analytics integrates advanced analytics, proven fraud strategies and best-practice consulting services for measurable results in fraud mitigation and optimized fraud operations. With some of the top fraud scientists in the field, BasePoint Analytics builds state-of-the-art predictive models using advanced techniques such as neural networks and machine learning algorithms and ensures those scores are integrated into the right loan review processes, lending policies and management reporting systems to achieve substantial and continuous fraud reduction. BasePoint Analytics is partnering with First American Real Estate Solutions to provide mortgage lenders with reliable and flexible solutions for detecting and preventing fraud. More information on BasePoint Analytics can be found at http://www.basepointanalytics.com. Safe Harbor Regarding Forward-Looking Statements Certain statements contained in this press release may be deemed to be forward-looking statements under federal securities laws and New Century Financial Corporation (New Century) and BasePoint Analytics (BasePoint) intend that such forward-looking statements be subject to the safe-harbor created thereby. Such forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to: (i) New Century's belief that the agreement with BasePoint will allow New Century to improve its pre-funding fraud detection and prevention significantly, while also reducing review costs for potentially fraudulent applications; (ii) New Century's belief that its partnership with BasePoint will allow New Century to better serve its customers and maximize overall loan quality and profitability, while reducing fraud and identity theft; (iii) New Century's belief that the BasePoint tools and techniques will help take its fraud prevention to an industry leadership position; and (iv) BasePoint's belief that integrating its advanced pattern recognition technology with best-in-class fraud review processes and strategies will become the standard for the industry. New Century and BasePoint caution that these statements are qualified by important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those reflected by the forward-looking statements. Such factors include, but are not limited to: (i) the condition of the U.S. economy and financial system; (ii) the interest rate environment; (iii) the effect of increasing competition in each company's sector; (iv) the stability of residential property values; (v) the potential effect of new state or federal laws and regulations; (vi) the outcome of litigation or regulatory actions pending against either company; (vii) New Century's ability to maintain adequate credit facilities to finance its business; and (viii) New Century's successful implementation and proper usage of BasePoint's fraud modeling technology. Additional information on these and other factors is contained in New Century's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2004 and the other periodic filings of New Century with the Securities and Exchange Commission. New Century and BasePoint assume no, and hereby disclaim any, obligation to update the forward-looking statements contained in this press release.

Source: PR Newswire