About AFC First
AFC First Financial Corporation (afcfirst.com), a Lehigh Valley, PA based private financial institution founded in 1947, operates as a mortgage banker, energy efficiency lender, and the provider of the EnergyLoan (energyloan.net) program, a residential financing program for energy related home improvements. It is also the exclusive lender for the Keystone Home Energy Loan Program (keystonehelp.com), Pennsylvania's official ENERGY STAR loan program, principally supported by by the Pennsylvania Treasury Department. AFC First is currently enagaged in the development of Great Bear Bank (greatbearbank.com), a commercial community bank in organization, which will permit further national expansion of its energy efficiency lending platform.
AFC First's Original Corporate Headquarters
Founded in 1947 by John L Krajsa Sr. and Anna C. Krajsa, AFC was one of the first independent lending institutions licensed by the Pennsylvania Department of Banking. John L. Krajsa Jr. and Peter J. Krajsa joined the company in the 1970s and assumed ownership in the late 1980s. Peter J. Krajsa is the current principal owner, joined by John M. Hayes in 2006. The company began as a specialty lender making unsecured character loans to good credit borrowers; a market then not serviced by traditional banking institutions. As the marketplace changed and credit card and other consumer loan vehicles emerged, AFC First began to focus on home improvement lending (HVAC and remodeling) as a way to expand its base of good credit customers. The company also entered the secondary mortgage or home equity lending business in 1980, among the first such companies licensed in the state.
Great Bear Center at Brookside - New Corporate Headquarters
In 1981 the company began to fund its portfolio in part with investment certificates offered directly to the public through an offering registered with the Pennsylvania Securities Commission. AFC First also began active participation in the secondary market selling mortgages on a bulk and flow basis. Throughout the 1980s and early 90s the company expanded its business throughout Pennsylvania primarily through correspondent relationships with community banks, mortgage companies and high quality home improvement dealers.
In 1995 AFC First began offering FHA Title One Home Improvement Loans on a statewide basis, and in 1999 was approved as a FannieMae Energy Loan lender. It has continued to expand the Energy Loan program offering it in cooperation with selected sponsoring manufacturers, utilities and other organizations, and currently offers the program in eleven Northeast and Mid-Atlantic U.S. states with over 1000 Approved Contractor/Dealers. In early 2005, AFC First was selected by the West Penn Power Sustainable Energy Fund to create the HELP program and which was launched in the West Penn Power service territory. In 2006 the Keystone HELP program was taken statewide through the principal support of the Pennsylvania Treasury Department.
AFC First was awarded the Penn Future Green Power Award in 2006 and The Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce has recognized AFC with its Excellence Business of the Year Award.
AFC First is licensed and regulated by the Pennsylvania Department of Banking under the Secondary Mortgage Loan Act and the Consumer Discount Company Act. As such a licensee it meets the requirements to function as a first and secondary mortgage banker or broker and is exempt from the Pennsylvania Mortgage Bankers and Brokers Act. It makes first mortgages under the Pennsylvania Loan Interest and Protection Law and is a Federal Housing Creditor under the Garn-St. Germain Act. As a licensed consumer lender or sales finance company in Pennsylvania, Delaware, Connecticut, Maryland, Maine, Virginia and Vermont, the company makes the EnergyLoan program available to homeowners in those states as well as a Pennsylvania lender making loans in Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey and Rhode Island under exemptions.
