FMD

The First Marblehead Corporation

A specialty finance company that built and ran private student-loan programs for banks, The First Marblehead Corporation designed, marketed, and serviced loans for students who had used up federal aid, and helped package those loans into securities sold to investors. It was founded in 1991 in Boston and took its name from Marblehead, Massachusetts—a town whose settlers, mistaking its granite ledges for marble, dubbed it "Marblehead." In 2017 the company rebranded as Cognition Financial Corporation after shifting its focus beyond student lending.