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Overture Technologies Adds J. Barry Morrow to Board of Directors

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Chevy Chase, MD (PRWEB) April 7, 2009

Bethesda, Maryland — Overture Technologies, the leading provider of decisioning software solutions that enable transparent, accurate and responsive lending processes for the mortgage and education finance industries, has announced the election of J. Barry Morrow to its Board of Directors.

“Barry brings tremendous experience in guiding companies through active stages of growth and a deep understanding of the perspectives of both lenders and schools in serving the higher education market,” said Bill Kelvie, CEO of Overture Technologies. “We’re pleased to attract such a well-respected industry leader to our Board.”

Morrow, an education finance industry veteran with 30 years of experience in business development, operations and technology, was president and CEO of Collegiate Funding Services, a leading student loan servicing company, until its acquisition by JP Morgan Chase Bank in 2006. Previously, Morrow was general manager of financial services for the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Student Financial Assistance. Earlier, Morrow was vice president of regional operations with Sallie Mae, where he spent 17 years in various senior operating executive positions. He holds an M.A. in public administration from George Washington University and a B.A. from Virginia Tech.

“Overture’s solutions help schools to expand the way they engage students on the process of financing their education and enable lenders to serve students in a more transparent and efficient way,” said Barry Morrow, board director at Overture Technologies. “Overture’s enabling, web-based technologies could not come at a more critical time for students facing increasing tuition costs and challenging credit markets. I am excited to serve on the Board of this dynamic and innovative company.”

About Overture Technologies

Founded in 2000, Overture Technologies is the leading provider of decisioning software solutions that enable transparent, accurate and responsive lending processes for the mortgage and education finance industries. Overture’s customers are dedicated to providing superior mortgage underwriting, servicing and securitization services and to increasing students’ access to higher education financing alternatives. Our leadership team applies decades of experience from leading financial services and technology firms including Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Goldman Sachs, IBM, KPMG and Sallie Mae to help our customers achieve their goals. For further information, call (301) 492-2140 or visit http://www.overturecorp.com.

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Overture Technologies and the Association of Independent California Colleges and Universities (AICCU) Announce Marketing Partnership for Student Loan Marketplace

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Bethesda, Maryland, and Sacramento, California (PRWEB) April 16, 2009

The Association of Independent California Colleges and Universities (AICCU), representing California’s 75 non-profit accredited colleges and universities with more than 289,000 students, and Overture Technologies, the leading provider of decisioning software solutions that enable transparent, accurate and responsive lending processes, announced today a marketing partnership to create the California Student Loan Marketplace. The California Student Loan Marketplace will be an online education financing resource that connects students and their families with lenders to encourage smart borrowing practices and compare reliable private student loan terms. Prager, Sealy, & Co., LLC, a leading higher education investment banking firm, will serve as the program manager for AICCU.

“It is more important than ever for families to have clear, accurate, and easy-to-understand information about alternatives for financing college costs,” said Jonathan Brown, AICCU president. “The California Student Loan Marketplace will help provide students with affordable higher education at top institutions.”

The California Student Loan Marketplace will allow schools to provide students and their families with access to unbiased information on financing higher education. The Marketplace will offer students, families, counselors, and institutions the following:

*Reliable loan terms from multiple lenders: The Marketplace will provide what students need – the ability to compare and select reliable financing options – not “as low as” advertisements – with a complete listing of reliable loan terms.

*Preservation of borrower credit scores and privacy: The Marketplace will provide a more efficient, safer loan shopping experience for students by pulling a single credit report to match borrower information with multiple lenders’ student loan products and allowing borrowers to choose which lender receives their information.

*Smart borrowing practices: The Marketplace will provide information on how to borrow wisely, including exhausting federal loan options before turning to private loans, and using a co-signer to achieve the best rates and fees.

*Guiding students to make informed decisions: The Marketplace can be configured with school-specific information about policies, deadlines, academic programs, and grade-levels to assure that students receive custom-tailored loan options.

*Enhanced transparency: The Marketplace will be an open network of lenders that allows schools to provide students with meaningful guidance in a safe and trustworthy environment.

“Overture is pleased to work with AICCU, a trusted group that is dedicated to connecting students with lenders for smarter financing of their education at private, non-profit colleges in California,” said Peter Carroll, Overture Technologies’ vice president, product marketing.

About AICCU

Since 1955, the Association of Independent California Colleges and Universities is the voice of California’s private, non-profit, WASC accredited colleges and universities for state and federal issues. AICCU schools enroll over 280,000 students annually. Founded in 1955, AICCU offers research, consolidated purchasing, and professional development opportunities to member schools; it also provides information to counselors, students, and parents about higher education in California.

About Overture Technologies

Founded in 2000, Overture Technologies is the leading provider of decisioning software solutions that enable the transparent, accurate and responsive lending processes required in today’s mortgage and higher education industries. Overture’s customers are dedicated to providing superior mortgage underwriting, servicing and securitization services and to increasing students’ access to higher education financing alternatives. Our leadership team applies decades of industry experience from leading financial services and technology firms to help our customers achieve their goals.

About Prager, Sealy & Co., LLC

Since Prager, Sealy & Co. was founded in 1987 with the assistance of two universities, higher education finance has remained a primary focus and strength. The firm’s mission is to provide clients with unparalleled personal and professional service, approaching each engagement with integrity, innovation, and insight. Prager, Sealy is committed to redefining investment banking by offering broad strategic advice with expert market execution.

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Overture Technologies Develops Online Service to Provide Students with More Secure, Reliable Way to Shop for Private Student Loans

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Bethesda, Maryland (PRWEB) April 16, 2009

Overture Technologies, the leading provider of decisioning software solutions that enable transparent, accurate and responsive lending processes for the mortgage and education finance industries, has announced the development of an online service that will be able to provide a more secure, reliable way for students to shop for private student loans. The Student Loan Marketplace is an innovative education financing tool that can help students and their families learn about and compare loan terms in an open and transparent network of lenders.

Overture plans to launch the service through marketing partners, such as associations of colleges and universities, and with participating lenders. The Student Loan Marketplace is the first multi-lender platform that allows students to review reliable private student loan terms based on their own personal and financial information instead of “as low as” advertisements for rates.

Amid the current rising costs of college and challenging economic environment, U.S. Department of Education data indicates applications for federal student aid in 2009 have increased by more than 20 percent over the same period last year. After exhausting all available scholarships, grants, work-study and low-cost federal loans, many students often must consider private student loans to finance part of the cost of education. This search has proven to be a challenge for many students, particularly those with little or no credit record, as the strain on credit markets has also resulted in a contraction of lending sources.

According to a College Board report on student borrowing trends, private student loan volume accounts for almost 25 percent of total education loan volume. The Student Loan Marketplace has been created to give students a secure, transparent resource where they can be matched with lenders to choose a loan based on the criteria that is most important to their individual situations.

*More Secure, Reliable Comparison Shopping for Students Who Are New to Borrowing

Currently, students new to borrowing are faced with a very confusing and time-consuming process to make apples-to-apples comparisons of private student loan terms from multiple lenders. If a student wishes to compare accurate rates and terms, he or she must enter personal information at each lender’s web site and consent to a credit pull before obtaining information suitable for comparison shopping, and then determine how to interpret calculations of APR and other costs across various loan products. With just one credit pull, The Student Loan Marketplace presents a side-by-side comparison of reliable loan products and terms on one page, and provides helpful explanations of terms.

“We built the Marketplace to put students in control of their private loans, giving them unprecedented insight into the details of the loan options available to them,” said David Kirby, general manager of Overture Technologies’ Education Finance Solutions group. “The Marketplace platform enables reliable comparisons of multiple private student loans in minutes – until now, no resource like this has been available.”

Commercial Real Estate: A Rose Among Thorns? John B. Levy & Company Finds Few Positives Budding in Today’s Commercial Real Estate Market

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Richmond, VA (PRWEB) April 19, 2009

Conditions that scorched the commercial real estate market in fourth quarter 2008 showed no signs of abating in January and February of 2009, dashing hopes among developers and investors alike that there might be an uptick in sales and refinancing activity in the new year. Market watchers in the crowd longing for the days of 2007 discovered the disappointment of looking at the world through rose-colored glasses.

“Every Thorn Has Its Rose” is the latest in a series of timely, informative podcasts produced by John B. Levy & Company, and it provides clients and analysts with a sobering vision of what they can expect in today’s commercial real estate market. This new podcast is available online at http://www.jblevyco.com.

“Any hint of rosy optimism has been overrun with thorns,” says John Levy, founder of John B. Levy & Company. “Most real estate owners, developers, and investors are beginning to realize that commercial real estate isn’t going to recover in 2009, and probably not in 2010.” He adds, “we’re looking toward 2011.”

Levy offers a couple reasons for his assessment. First, of the top one hundred largest markets in the United States, ninety are still showing job losses, indicating that the current recession is both deep and wide. Jobs drive the demand for multifamily housing, and they create the need for retail and office space. In addition, commercial real estate is a lagging, not leading sector.

“When the subprime financial market was going over Niagara Falls backward in a canoe in 2007,” Levy says, “those of us in the commercial sector were doing just fine. That said, we shouldn’t expect commercial real estate to lead us out of this recession.”

While it’s difficult to be optimistic about today’s market, Levy says there is a rose among the thorns, but it is in the budding stage. First, the federal government is pushing massive liquidity into the commercial real estate market via TARP and TALF, and these programs are starting to show promise. For example, spreads on commercial mortgage backed securities (CMBS) have tightened more than 500 basis points. Levy also believes we might see the rebirth of CMBS securitization by the end of the year, and the prospect of rejoining securitization and commercial real estate is a huge step in the right direction.

“In the meantime,” Levy says, “the biggest problem owners and developers face today is that their loans are maturing and they lack financing opportunities. Almost $ 300 billion in commercial real estate loans is coming due in 2009, and more than $ 200 billion comes from bank loans. This situation creates a major challenge.”

Levy suggests that owners and developers hire experts to assemble a financial package and help with strategy and negotiations. He also recommends that those with properties suffering from negative cash flow avoid using personal cash to keep the note current. Instead, that cash can be used as a principal payment or as additional collateral for negotiations and loan extensions.

Finally, Levy suggests, those with a CMBS loan should ask in writing – not over the phone – for their loan to be transferred from the master servicer to the special service. This strategy is helpful because only the special servicer can extend the loan or offer forbearance.

“Now is not a good time to be out there all alone,” Levy says. “We’re in uncharted waters right now, and a lot of owners and developers need help. This market is dicey.”

Firm Background

John B. Levy & Company, Inc. is a real estate investment-banking firm headquartered in Richmond, Virginia. Since John Levy founded the company in 1995, the firm has structured over $ 3.5 billion in financing for developers and owners of commercial and multi-family projects nationwide, often investing its own proprietary funds into transactions with its clients. Mr. Levy is an expert on commercial real estate financing and the effects of interest rates on commercial real estate markets. He is the originator and author of the Barron’s/John B. Levy & Company National Mortgage Survey, a monthly survey of more than 30 of the country’s largest institutional investors, as well as buyers and sellers of commercial mortgage-backed securities, which Barron’s published for over 23 years. Mr. Levy is also co-creator of The Giliberto-Levy Commercial Mortgage Performance Index (sm), the first and pre-eminent index to measure and analyze the performance of investments in the commercial mortgage industry. Additionally, he is a member of the Board of Directors of Anthracite Capital Inc. (NYSE: AHR), a New York Stock Exchange REIT managed by BlackRock, Inc and a former director of Value Property Trust.

For more information about John B. Levy & Company, please visit the firm’s website at http://www.jblevyco.com or call Andrew Little at 804-644-2000, extension 260.

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Woodbridge Investments LLC Announces Auction Site for Investments in Structured Settlement and Lottery Receivables

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New York, NY (PRWEB) April 27, 2009

Scott Schwartz, Vice President of Woodbridge Investments has today announced the launch of a new auction site to bring high yield investment opportunities to investors nationwide. Schwartz stated, “Up to now we would have never offered these investments to individual investors since our institutional demand was so strong.” But he added, “Due to the recent financial crisis and lack of a dependable securitization market, we are now offering these high yield investment opportunities to private investors in an auction format.”

Lottery winners and Structured Settlement recipients are usually paid in long, drawn-out monthly or annual payments. Woodbridge goes to court and gets a court-ordered assignment of these payments paid directly to the investors by either the state lottery commissions or by major insurance companies such as Allstate, Hartford, AIG or others.

Schwartz further added, “What better opportunity is there out there today? Court ordered directly into the investors name paid directly by insurance companies yielding up to 11%. I have never ever seen a default of a lottery payment by a state agency.”

Woodbridge and its predecessor companies have been purchasing lotteries and structured settlements since 1993. Woodbridge has helped thousands of people gain access to their future payments, allowing them to sell their annuity payments, structured settlements or lottery payments for cash now.

For more information about Woodbridge Investments, LLC or to make a high yield investment, contact Scott Schwartz at 866-865-7044.

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AuthenWare Adds Financial Sector Expert to Management Team

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Miami, FL (PRWEB) May 8, 2009

AuthenWare, a leader in keystroke dynamics software, today announced that Andre De Castro has joined the company as Vice President of Pre-Sales and Professional Services. In this role, he will be instrumental in positioning and aggressively marketing AuthenWare’s end-to-end solutions across the globe. Hailing from Citigroup’s Fixed Income Technology division, Mr. De Castro will leverage his expertise in financial services to help organizations minimize the impact of cybercrime.

“Authenware is excited to have Andre as part of the team,” said Tom Helou, AuthenWare president. “As online transactions grow, hackers become a greater predator, attacking our credit cards as well as our individual identities. Andre’s strong financial background offers a unique set of skills to properly service today and tomorrow’s banking sector clients. We are proud to welcome Andre to AuthenWare.”

At AuthenWare, Mr. De Castro will be responsible for supporting sales initiatives and defining various metrics and processes. Further, Mr. De Castro will delineate the professional services strategy, sketching plans for consulting, customer support, and other elements of service. In addition, he will cultivate key partnerships with business leaders, analysts, associations and industry federations, in related disciplines.

Prior to joining AuthenWare, Mr. De Castro built and directed software development teams, managed the business process automation across global securitized markets, and acted as the point person across all commercial and residential mortgage backed securities hardware, storage and virtualization at Citigroup. His accomplished background also includes sales and software experience at BEA Systems and Plumtree Software.

About AuthenWare

Headquartered in Miami, AuthenWare is a leading innovator and producer of keystroke dynamics software. Its identity authentication product, AuthenWare, recognizes valid users by calculating the unique rhythm and beat with which the typist keys in data (i.e. their username and password) on their computer keyboard. AuthenWare evaluates this information along with behavioral and environmental characteristics to keep hackers out and let authorized personnel in. The company services customers that span across international borders and business sectors, effectively providing security to industries such as financial services, government, transportation and logistics, manufacturing, and retail.

For more information, please visit our website at http://www.authenware.com.

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iServiceGlobe and Sky Technologies Announce Partnership to Deliver Mobile Solutions to SAP Clients throughout the Globe

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Sunnyvale, CA (PRWEB) May 11, 2009

iServiceGlobe, an SAP business solutions provider, and Sky Technologies, an industry leader in enterprise mobility, and integration for SAP, announced today their partnership to sell Sky’s mobile solutions.

The two companies have already engaged one of iServiceGlobe’s existing clients; Canada based information security company, Securit. In the process of developing the ideal solution for Securit’s CRM implementation, the iServiceGlobe consulting team found Sky’s existing platform had the capabilities to meet their client’s mobility needs. Sky Technologies software will provide the backbone for communication between Securit SAP CRM Services system and the Motorola Symbol

New Payment Office Monitoring Service Tracks DoD Invoices

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Fairfax County, Virginia (PRWEB) June 1, 2009

A new “payment office monitoring service” (POMS) tracks invoices, making billing and collections faster, better, and more reliable at a price 35% to 55% lower than comparable processes performed in-house by accounting staff.

Developed by the Accounts Receivable Management Corporation (armcor.com Ltd.), POMS for DFAS is for contractors that submit invoices to the Defense Finance and Accounting Service.

“I’ve been involved with the A/R side of the government contracting world for nearly twenty years, and I know that POMS will make contractors more efficient and profitable,” says John Fedewa, President. “POMS tracks more than 50 data points about each invoice, helping subscribers detect problems right away, before they become costly and disruptive.”

Offered with a no-obligation 40-day trial, POMS for DFAS provides subscribers with an e‑mail notification summary of all changes to submitted invoices 2, 3, or 5 times a week. Monthly, quarterly, and annual subscriptions are available.

After the free trial period, POMS for DFAS costs as little as 22 cents per day per invoice. Actual rates vary according to monitoring frequency and the quantity of invoices to be tracked, and discounts are given for longer subscription commitments.

“The bottom line is that tracking a typical Net 30 invoice with POMS for DFAS will cost an active biller between just $ 6.65 and $ 15.11,” says Fedewa. “That’s an expense that pays for itself many times over in saved staff time, reduced average days outstanding, and increased cash flow. With POMS for DFAS, you’ll never get blindsided by a collections crisis.”

According to Fedewa, POMS will offer additional enhancements and expanded capabilities in the future.

See payofficemonitor.com for more information.

About the Accounts Receivable Management Corporation:

The Accounts Receivable Management Corporation (armcor.com Ltd.) is a niche financial services company based in Greater Metropolitan Washington, DC. Founded in 1999, armcor.com is a provider of working capital sourcing, collections, A/R consulting, and specialized factoring services underwritten by private lenders securitized by government receivables. armcor.com currently offers POMS to prime contractors serving military agencies of the United States government CONUS, OCONUS, in theater, and throughout the world.

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Commercial Real Estate: Not Sick, But Not Well — Investors, Developers Await Final Diagnosis of Today’s Commercial Real Estate Market

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Richmond, VA (PRWEB) June 9, 2009 –

Sick? Well? On the road to recovery? The diagnosis is still out on the state of today’s commercial real estate market, according to “I’m Not Sick, But I’m Not Well,” the latest in a series of timely, informative podcasts produced by John B. Levy & Company. This new podcast, which is available online at http://www.jblevyco.com, provides clients and analysts with clear understanding of what they can expect in today’s market.

Sentiment among investors and developers about the outlook for commercial real estate is mixed. On the positive side, the stock market has trended up nearly ten percent since April, and along the way, government loan programs have begun to work. But as previous podcasts from John B. Levy & Company have emphasized, commercial real estate is a lagging indicator. It’s unclear whether the market has hit bottom. And even if it has, there are no signs that conditions are improving, even modestly.

“There’s no doubt about it. We are in the throes of a violent deleveraging,” says John Levy, founder of John B. Levy & Company. “Most of us – and I’m speaking for myself, too – have never seen anything like these current conditions. By the time this is all over, values will have declined some 25 to 40 percent from their peak.”

Having experienced the deleveraging and suffered the loss of value, real estate investment trusts (REITs) are now raising new capital at a frenetic pace. In the past couple months alone, more than three dozen REITs have raised over $ 12 billion. As all this takes place, private developers wait on the sidelines, hoping that values recover quickly.

“I hate to say it, but ‘hope’ is not a business strategy,” says Levy. “What’s happening right now reminds me eerily of what happened in the early ’90s. REITs raised new equity long before private developers determined they should do the same.”

As for the debt side of the commercial real estate equation, there have been no new securitizations since the beginning of 2009. What the market is experiencing is an exceedingly high demand for loan extensions from borrowers who can’t find replacement debt.

“CMBS servers are facing a tsunami wave of loan extensions for maturity defaults,” says Levy, “and most are for six months to a year. By the end of 2009, we expect to see extensions as long as three years, perhaps even five.”

Borrowers need to know that there’s a difference between getting a loan extension from a CMBS server and a bank or life insurance company. A CMBS loan extension requires specific processes and procedures, which makes it important that borrowers work with an experienced mortgage or investment banker. Not doing so puts them at a distinct disadvantage.

“Can borrowers who are requesting loan extensions do so without an experienced mortgage or investment banker? Yes,” says Levy. “But that’s not what we recommend. It’s like going to court without a lawyer. Sure, it might be cheaper but only in the short run.”

Firm Background

John B. Levy & Company, Inc. is a real estate investment-banking firm headquartered in Richmond, Virginia. Since John Levy founded the company in 1995, the firm has structured over $ 3.5 billion in financing for developers and owners of commercial and multi-family projects nationwide, often investing its own proprietary funds into transactions with its clients. Mr. Levy is an expert on commercial real estate financing and the effects of interest rates on commercial real estate markets. He is the originator and author of the Barron’s/John B. Levy & Company National Mortgage Survey, a monthly survey of more than 30 of the country’s largest institutional investors, as well as buyers and sellers of commercial mortgage-backed securities, which Barron’s published for over 23 years. Mr. Levy is also co-creator of The Giliberto-Levy Commercial Mortgage Performance Index (sm), the first and pre-eminent index to measure and analyze the performance of investments in the commercial mortgage industry. Additionally, he is a member of the Board of Directors of Anthracite Capital Inc. (NYSE: AHR), a New York Stock Exchange REIT managed by BlackRock, Inc and a former director of Value Property Trust.

For more information about John B. Levy & Company, please visit the firm’s website at http://www.jblevyco.com or call John Levy at 804-644-2000, extension 237. You may also follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jblevyco.

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Jewish & Palestinian Students Unite to Answer Obama’s Call to Action in Cairo By Launching Site to Empower Middle East Entrepreneurs

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Philadelphia, PA (PRWEB) June 9, 2009

Speaking to the Muslim world from Cairo University, President Barack Obama recently challenged people of all nationalities to “turn dialogue into interfaith service so bridges between peoples lead to action.” A group of four University of Pennsylvania students and alumni have recently answered Obama’s call by launching LendforPeace.org, a grassroots organization that promotes economic opportunity and stability in the Middle East. The organization, founded by two Jews and two Palestinians, is a not-for-profit Internet platform that allows individuals to make small loans to specific micro-entrepreneurs in the West Bank. In doing so, LendforPeace.org allows one to help Palestinian micro-entrepreneurs lift themselves out of poverty by building sustainable businesses.

LendforPeace.org, which was recently showcased on Fox Business, has partnered with world-premier institutions to develop their international microfinance platform. The organization received grants from the Clinton Global Initiative and Ashoka, and has formalized relationships with a number of successful microfinance institutions in the Middle East. These microfinance institutions have been approved by the US Government’s humanitarian assistance agency, USAID. They are responsible for selecting creditworthy entrepreneurs, posting entrepreneur profiles to LendforPeace.org’s website, and delivering capital and support services throughout the duration of each loan. Lenders can contribute as little as $ 25 to a particular entrepreneur’s micro-loan and then receive updates as their entrepreneur’s business grows. Unlike a donation, lenders get their money back at the end of the pre-set loan period and can choose to withdraw their money or to re-loan it again and again.

LendforPeace.org aims to unite people from all parts of the political spectrum by focusing on the concrete business of economic development. The site creates financial and emotional bonds between the diverse set of lenders around the world and borrowers in the Middle East who participate. The founders of LendforPeace.org are sensitive to the power of interfaith dialogue as they themselves crossed ethnic and religious lines to bring the organization to life. “We have constant political disagreements,” said Co-Founder Sam Adelsberg, “but we recognize that in order to make progress we have to focus on the areas on which we can agree. One thing we all believe is that there is no winner in poverty.”

LendforPeace.org’s launch comes on the heels of a $ 5,000 pilot which yielded a 100% repayment rate. While the Middle East is more volatile than other regions, this success is in line with repayment rates worldwide: according to the Microcredit Summit Campaign, the average on-time repayment rate for microcredit is more than 97%. LendforPeace.org hopes to replicate the success of its pilot going forward. While economic development is central to the organization’s mission, LendforPeace.org believes the interaction facilitated on the site alone may have a positive impact. Said Co-Founder Allam Taj, “Part of our goal is to humanize the Palestinian experience, both through exposing lenders to specific individuals in the West Bank and by letting borrowers know that their loan was made possible by an organization started by young American Jews and Palestinians who care about their future.”

LendforPeace.org benefits from an accomplished Board of Advisors including Delphine Thizy, PlaNet Finance’s Director of the Palestinian Territories, and attorney Howard Finkelstein, one of the country’s pioneers in the securitization of microfinance-related obligations. LendforPeace.org is also being advised by Hanna Siniora, a member of the Palestine National Council and the chairperson of the Palestinian-American Chamber of Commerce, and David Gutelius, a Silicon Valley software entrepreneur and co-founder of Ishtirak, a technology and microeconomic development consultancy focused exclusively on the Middle East and Islamic Africa.

LendforPeace.org recently held its official launch in Philadelphia at the Wharton School’s Jon M. Huntsman Hall. The event included a presentation by the founders, an invocation from University Chaplain Chas Howard and a keynote address on active citizenship by Dr. John DiIulio, the first Director of the White House Office of Faith-Based Initiatives. The event culminated in a surprise video-conference with Salma Suleiman of Asala, one of LendforPeace.org’s microfinance partners in Ramallah. Salma stayed up until 3 AM local time to participate in the launch event and to encourage attendees to get involved. Said Salma, “LendforPeace.org will help us increase our microlending activities here in the West Bank. This in turn will enable us to shepherd more and more families out of poverty.”

In the words of President Obama, “Faith should bring us together. That’s why we’re forging service projects in America to bring together Christians, Muslims, and Jews.” LendforPeace.org is proud to be a part of this movement of interfaith dialogue and service.

For more information, please visit http://www.LendforPeace.org.

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