ELEVIEW TO OFFER WEB-BASED CROP LIEN DATABASE

Eleview (Agri-eBusiness Group Inc.) is partnering with Credit Risk Management (CRM) of London, Ontario to offer a new service feature - a lien database that will be accessible via Eleview's current Web service. The new service will list all active crop liens of ACC Farmers' Financial and of the Ontario Corn Producers' Association (OCPA). It will also be available for any other member commodity organizations and grain elevators, to register secured liens or simply list unsecured claims against crops. The Ontario Ministry of Consumer and Business Services provides the only secured lien registration service - the Personal Property Security Registration (PPSR) system - and all ACC Farmers' Financial and many OCPA crop loans are registered through the Ontario PPSR. In addition, ACC Farmers' Financial distributes a comprehensive paper listing of crop loans to grain elevators, that serves as both notification of the claim against the crop and a statement of the amount per tonne to be deducted for crop loan repayments.

The new Eleview service will allow for simplified Web-based lien PPSR registration and search via CRM. All PPSR registrations done via the Eleview/CRM service will also be listed in the Eleview lien database. Clients may also simply list a claim against a crop in the Eleview lien database, without registering it through the PPSR. In the latter case, it merely serves as notification and no lien priority is established, nor is the claim secured. One noteworthy advantage of the new service is that there are no fees for searching the Eleview lien database, and this search may preclude the need for a PPSR search. The new service will also make it easier for grain elevators to quickly determine whether a loan repayment is to be deducted from the payment for a particular crop delivery.

Eleview's Lien Database will:
• enable parties providing crop advances and loans, or extending credit on crop supplies, to list their lien against one or multiple crops, or to become a secured creditor by registering their liens with the PPSR via CRM;
• enable potential lenders to determine whether a particular producer has active liens listed in the Eleview database and to request, via CRM, a complete report of all secured PPSR registered liens;
• enable a producer to see all active liens in the Eleview database that have been listed/registered against their crops where they are the debtor and to request, via CRM, a similar report of PPSR registered liens;
• enable a lender to see all active liens in the Eleview database where they are the lender;
• enable a lender to change the status of a lien to inactive either through the Eleview Web interface or through a formal PPSR discharge via CRM.

Privacy and Security

The new service will provide no more information than would be publicly available, via a search of the Ontario PPSR and the data will only be available to lenders, potential lenders and to the debtor listed. The Eleview system already controls access - each user has a unique user ID and password.
Lenders will be able to obtain a listing of all active liens in the Eleview lien database, where they are listed as the lender. They will be able to, in fact will be obligated to, update the status of a lien when the loan or portion of the loan pertaining to a specific crop has been repaid. They may optionally formally discharge a PPSR registered lien.
Producers will be able to view the status of all active liens in the Eleview lien database where they are listed as the debtor. This type of information has not generally been available to producers before, except where the loan is registered through the PPSR, in which case a search fee applies. Note that there is no charge for producer membership in the Eleview service -one simply has to register via www.eleview.ca.
Potential lenders (i.e. member commodity organizations and input suppliers) and member grain elevators will be able to use Eleview's powerful producer database search tool, to determine whether there are any liens listed in the Eleview database and/or in the PPSR, where a specific producer is listed as the debtor and, if so, the amount to be deducted per unit of crop for loan repayment.

Easy Listing and Registration

Eleview maintains a comprehensive database of Ontario producers and grain elevators, each assigned a unique identity number. When a member commodity organization or grain elevator searches the producer database, selects a specific producer and proceeds to list or register a claim against one or more crops, almost all required data for both the lender and the debtor is pre-populated from Eleview's database. (See Screen Capture.)
The user may add information on additional debtors and on the crops that the lien pertains to. The entire process takes only a few moments.

Service Expansion

Eleview plans to add related services from CRM including credit assessment and debt recovery. Together, Eleview and CRM are capable of delivering this service across Canada and such expansion is planned once the service experience in Ontario has been assessed.
The project is partially funded by the Elgin Community Futures Development Corporation. "We see this as a first step in leveraging Eleview's agri-focused Web services through the elginconnects portal," says Donna Lunn, Elginconnects Coordinator. "Agriculture is one of the most important economic and social institutions in our county and we need to build and maintain an environment that will accommodate a thriving industry. It should provide visibility for participants forward and backward along the supply chain, i.e. suppliers and value added."
The OCPA is also looking forward to the Eleview service. "This will be an efficient and private means of communicating up-to-date lien information to those with a need to know," says Brenda Miller-Sanford.
The service is expected to be generally available in Ontario after a short trial period which begins this month (September).