CALABASAS, Calif., Jan. 10 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/-- Countrywide Credit Industries, Inc. (NYSE: CCR), a diversified financial services provider, released operational data for the month ended December 31, 2001. "Countrywide delivered another exceptional funding month in December," noted Stanford L. Kurland, chief operating officer. "Total loan fundings reached a record $17.5 billion in December, an increase of 181 percent from December last year. Average daily loan applications were $797 million, an increase of 89 percent from last year. The pipeline of loans-in-process was over $22 billion, a gain of 124 percent over last December.

"Mortgage rates have increased since their historic lows in November," Kurland continued. "Countrywide's macro-hedge strategy is designed to sustain our performance during these types of rate shifts. Production volumes are ultimately expected to decline from unprecedented highs established recently. However, our servicing sector is designed to produce growing earnings from our record $337 billion portfolio as servicing margins increase due to higher rates.

"Our long-term strategic focus in our production sector has always been the home purchase market," Kurland added. "This focus is due to the consistent growth in consumer demand for purchase loans. The MBA purchase application index is currently at an all-time record. Countrywide's home purchase fundings surpassed $6 billion in December, were 39 percent higher than last year, and nearly matched the all-time record set in August. Purchase applications month-to-date in January are running 8 percent higher than our average for calendar 2001, a record-breaking year. The home purchase market remains robust despite the winter months customarily marking the bottom of the seasonal trough.

"While higher mortgage rates will result in reduced refinance activity, Countrywide's business model and operational strategy were designed to contemplate this event. First, our production sector has a flexible cost structure that utilizes significant temporary help to meet peak demand as well as largely variable compensation for our sales force. Secondly, we offer counter-cyclical loan products, such as home equity loans, which are already enjoying increased demand. Fundings of highly profitable home equity loans are up 82 percent over last year at $712 million. Furthermore, our large $22 billion pipeline of applications in process will produce significant funding volume that still needs to be processed. Total average daily applications so far in January are 5 percent ahead of last month, which indicates production activity still remains robust today.

"Our low coupon servicing portfolio reached a record $337 billion in December. While prepayment speeds remained high, we successfully grew the portfolio in December faster than normal as production exceeded prepayments by $6 billion. Higher mortgage rates will result in lower prepayment speeds and slower amortization of our mortgage servicing rights and, accordingly, higher servicing earnings.

"Carrier monthly net written premiums in the insurance group were $35 million for December 2001, a 13 percent increase over last December. Agency annual premiums on policies-in-force also reached a new milestone this month, hitting $270 million, a gain of 24 percent over last December's $218 million. Policies-in-force advanced 14 percent year over year to 566,000 for December 2001.

"Countrywide Capital Markets, our investment banking subsidiary, has nearly doubled its trading volume on a year-over-year basis with December 2001 volumes at $126 billion -- exceeding $1.5 trillion on an annualized basis. Global Home Loans, our European mortgage processing joint venture, processes over 15,000 loan originations per month and subservices over $42 billion for over 760,000 borrowers in the United Kingdom. Treasury Bank, our newest diversification initiative, now has $839 million in assets, in line with our expectations. Assets at the bank are expected to grow to $22 billion over a three-year period.

"As the anticipated changes occur in the mortgage banking industry, we are strategically focused on managing our macro-hedge strategy," Kurland concluded. "While profits from the origination sector are expected to decline as interest rates rise, we expect that higher profits from the servicing sector will be realized. Today we are better positioned to withstand significant rate shifts than at any other time in our history. Given our extensive experience in managing interest rate cycles and continuous strategic refinements to our business model, we have greater variability in our cost structure that will be appropriately managed. As we enter 2002, Countrywide is optimistic about the prospects ahead. Our diversification initiatives combined with the strength of our core business will provide the platform upon which we continue to evolve the company into a diversified financial services provider."

Effective this month, Countrywide will discontinue publishing the 13-month statistical data as a separate press release. This information will now be available on the company's website no later than three business days following issuance of the monthly operations press release. To access the data, please visit the company's website at http://www.countrywide.com and then select "investor relations" and then "financial news."

For more information about the company, visit Countrywide's website at
http://www.countrywide.com .

For further information, please contact Jennifer Sandefur or Lisa Riordan, both of Countrywide Credit Industries, Inc., +1-818-225-3550.

Certain of the information included in this press release may contain forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ materially from historical results or those anticipated due to a number of factors such as the direction and level of interest rates, competitive and general economic conditions in each of our business sectors, expense and loss levels in our mortgage, insurance and other business sectors, general economic conditions in the United States and abroad and in the domestic and international areas in which we do business, the legal, regulatory and legislative environments in which the company operates, valuation of our assets and effectiveness of our hedging activities under existing or future accounting standards, performance of individual securities, financial instruments and markets as a whole in response to world events, changes in accounting and financial reporting standards, decisions by the company to change its business mix, and other risks detailed in documents filed by the company with the Securities and Exchange Commission from time to time. Words like "believe," "expect," "should," "may," "could," "anticipated," "promising" and other expressions which indicate future events and trends identify forward-looking statements. The company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements.