Ford Motor Credit Company

Our sustainability reporting has traditionally focused on our Automotive sector – the part of the business that designs and builds vehicles. The other major part of our business is Ford Motor Credit Company, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Ford Motor Company. Ford Credit offers automotive financial services to dealerships and customers around the world. Ford Credit's sole focus is helping to sell Ford Motor Company vehicles.

Ford Credit North America does business in every state in the United States and all provinces in Canada. Outside the United States, FCE Bank plc is Ford Credit's largest operation. The biggest share of FCE's business is in the UK and Germany, with smaller operations in most other European countries. Ford Credit also operates in select markets in Asia Pacific, Africa and Latin America, where it offers financing options appropriate for local markets.

Ford Credit offers products in three primary categories:

• Retail financing – purchasing retail installment sales contracts and retail leases from dealers, and offering financing to commercial customers, primarily vehicle leasing companies and fleet purchasers, to purchase or lease vehicle fleets
• Wholesale financing – making loans to dealers to finance the purchase of vehicle inventory, also known as floorplan financing
• Other financing – making loans to dealers for working capital, for improvements to dealership facilities and for acquiring and refinancing dealership real estate

Ford Credit works on issues of interest to its stakeholders, including the following.

• Credit Availability: Ford Credit makes financing available for qualified dealers and consumers. Planned actions – including transitioning Jaguar, Land Rover and Mazda to alternate financing providers – will reduce Ford Credit's funding requirements going forward and support its liquidity needs for its core Ford business.
• Credit Approvals: Ford Credit continues to use the same consistent and prudent credit standards and practices it has used for many years to support Ford Motor Company dealers and customers. Because the Company uses proprietary credit originations and collections systems, it can finance and collect from a broader range of customers than if it used credit scores alone. The Company is still offering a full range of financing products to qualified dealers and customers.
• Consumer Education: Ford Credit is a longstanding supporter of financial education through organizations such as AWARE (Americans Well-Informed on Automobile Retailing Economics), Jump$tart and Junior Achievement. Ford Credit's Web site includes information in English and Spanish to help consumers make informed decisions about vehicle financing. Ford Credit's prudent financing and servicing practices help keep credit available and affordable for a broad spectrum of consumers.
• Service Quality: In 2008, Ford Credit once again performed well in the annual third-party study that measures customer satisfaction with financing of new vehicles, based on surveys of nearly 28,000 consumers. In the 2008 survey, Ford Credit earned the top score among all non-luxury lease providers and earned the second-highest scores in the non-luxury loan and luxury lease categories among all finance providers.
• Customer Privacy: Safeguarding customer information is important to Ford Credit, which uses systems, policies and procedures to maintain the accuracy of customer information and to protect it from loss, misuse or alteration. Customer information is accessible to appropriate personnel who have a business need for the information. Ford Credit provides training and communications programs to educate personnel about our privacy requirements.
• Identity Theft: Ford Credit is a founding member of the Identity Theft Assistance Center, a nonprofit industry association in which member institutions collaborate to protect their customers from fraud and help them recover if they are ID theft victims.