Juno, HomeSide in Mortgage Marketing Pact

Dial-up ISP Juno Online Services and HomeSide Lending, Inc. on Tuesday announced a deal to market residential mortgage financing services from the Juno Web portal.

The New York-based Juno, which provides free and paid ISP services in the U.S., said the deal makes HomeSide the exclusive provider of residential mortgages to its 3.3 million active subscribers.

Financial terms of the deal were not released although the two sides gave the indication it is a straight marketing agreement for HomeSide to hawk its home-financing program to Juno’s users.

HomeSide said it would offer a wide variety of mortgages and home equity lines of credit. HomeSide is hailed as one of the largest residential mortgage companies in the world, with a $190 billion mortgage-servicing portfolio.

The Jacksonville, Florida-based HomeSide said its online mortgage technology allows a streamlined loan process, offering an approval decision in as little as 10 minutes.

For Juno, which plans to merge operations with rival free ISP NetZero, the partnership adds another big name client to its advertiser roster at a time when ad spending budgets have been slashed.

The six-year-old Juno provides multiple levels of service, including free basic Internet access, billable premium dial-up service and high-speed broadband access in some markets.