Through the end of the third quarter the MPF had more than $80 billion of home loans outstanding. "We feel consistently that for some of our loan sales we are much better off doing business with the Federal Home Loan Bank than with Fannie Mae," said Mark Spenny, chief lending officer for CEFCU, Peoria, Ill., which sells its loans to the Chicago bank. While posing many similarities to the traditional secondary market programs as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the FHLBs' program has some distinct differences, and advantages. First, the FHLBs provide low-cost funding enabling its members, including more than 700 credit unions, to originate the loans. Then, the home loan banks buy the loans under the MPF to provide more funding for lending. The major difference in the programs is that Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac will buy the loans and assume all of the credit risk in exchange for a guarantee fee, some times as much as 25 basis points.