Green Sheet

NEWS

MasterCard Shareholders Approve Proposals

MasterCard Inc. shareholders voted to approve a range of proposals to provide MasterCard with a new ownership and governance structure. These include amendments to the governing documents of MasterCard, the proposed initial public offering of the company's Class A common stock and a new long-term incentive plan.

The meeting was part of MasterCard's previously announced plans for a new corporate governance and open ownership structure that will include the appointment of a new board of directors, the transition to a publicly traded company and the establishment of a charitable foundation that will hold 10% of the company's shares.

ID Analytics Analyzes Data Breaches

ID Analytics Inc. recently announced findings from its analysis of four data breaches. These were that different breaches pose different degrees of risk. ID Analytics distinguishes between "identity level" breaches, in which names and Social Security numbers were stolen, and "account level" breaches, in which only account numbers, sometimes associated with names, were stolen.

The research found that identity-level breaches pose the greatest threat to businesses and consumers due to fraudsters' methods for profiting from identity information. Even so, the calculated fraudulent misuse rate for consumer victims of the analyzed breach with the highest rate of misuse was 0.098%.

Micropayments on the Rise

A survey on the small payments market found consumers' desire to use credit and debit cards for small payments at the POS and online is rising. The survey, conducted by Ipsos Insight and Peppercoin, found that 45 million Americans are willing to use credit or debit cards for purchases of $5 or less, up 23% from September 2004.

Additionally, nearly 20 million Americans have purchased something online for less than $2 in the past year, up nearly 29% from September 2004 and 350% from October 2003.

Only 7% of respondents who would not use credit or debit cards for small payments indicated that they find it easier or prefer to use cash rather than a credit card.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Crane Resigns From ABHN Board

Douglas Crane resigned from the American Bank Note Holographics Inc. (ABNH) board of directors. Crane joined the ABNH board following Crane & Co.'s investment of approximately $9.3 million for approximately 3.4 million common shares of ABNH stock in 2000. Crane's resignation follows Crane & Co.'s notice that it intends to sell some or all of its shares to institutional investors.

Commerciant Secures $2 Million

Commerciant LP secured $2 million in venture financing from new investors, Aegis Texas Venture Fund LP and Accent Texas Fund I LP. This financing brings the company's total capital raised to date to more than $12 million.

Commerciant will use the new capital to expand its marketing, sales and operations to meet growing demand for wireless payment processing solutions.

Swedish Grocery Selects Hypercom

Axfood AB, one of Scandinavia's largest food retailers, selected and will install Hypercom Corp.'s Optimum P2100 PIN entry payment devices in its 800 stores throughout Sweden.

Lipman Ships Products to Germany

Lipman Electronic Engineering Ltd. received orders totaling $3 million from retailers in Germany. These orders, for Lipman's Dione Secura PIN Pads and Xpress card readers, are Lipman's first sales to customers in the German market.

NYCE Cross-border Debits Reach 1 Million

Cross-border debit reached 1 million transactions in the year since the rollout of NYCE Network's Cross-Border Debit service. With the service, consumers are able to use debit cards issued by Canadian financial institutions at NYCE retailers in the United States. Thus far, Canadian cardholder purchases via the NYCE service have totaled more than $56.7 million.

While NYCE transactions initiated by U.S. cardholders averaged $46, Canadian cardholders posted an average transaction of $62.

VeriFone Receives $5.8 Million Order

VeriFone received a contract valued at $5.8 million to supply a major Mexican bank with 19,000 electronic payment systems.

The contract includes the countertop Vx 510 with dual dial and Ethernet communications capability and both general packet radio service and Wi-Fi equipped versions of the portable Vx 610.

PARTNERSHIPS

Acuity Expands Processing With CrossCheck

CrossCheck Inc. announced a partnership with Acuity Merchant Services. The partnership allows Acuity merchants to process checks through CrossCheck's Check Conversion Plus service.

Acuity's merchant base now also can accept checks over the Internet using CrossCheck's ChecksByNet e-commerce service, They also can approve check orders by phone and fax as part of the CheckNow feature.

NAB Selects Edentify

Edentify Inc. announced that North American Bancard (NAB) signed a three-year deal to incorporate Edentify's complete suite of identity management solutions into its merchant services offerings.

MasterCard Promotes Transaction Aggregation

MasterCard and Peppercoin signed a Letter of Intent and are working toward an alliance to accelerate card usage for small payments at the physical POS sale and online. MasterCard believes that by aggregating smaller payments, a merchant can process micro-payment transactions cost effectively.

Through the anticipated alliance, merchants who enroll in the Peppercoin micro and small payments program will receive a reduction in Peppercoin fees for their MasterCard transactions.

New Edge Networks Establishes Direct Connections

New Edge Networks and First Data Corp. established high-speed direct network connections that will allow merchants who buy New Edge Network services to use First Data for processing bankcard transactions.

New Edge Networks also established a direct network connection to American Express Co. to enable merchants to process transactions directly with the card network. The connections help businesses speed up transactions and cut processing costs.

Pay By Touch and NCR Announce Alliance

Pay By Touch and NCR Corp. announced an alliance. Under the agreement, retailers using NCR's Advanced Checkout Solution POS software and the WinEPS solution from MTXEPS Inc. can readily implement the Pay By Touch services.

Q Comm Expands Products

Q Comm International Inc. entered into a contract with existing sales and marketing partner Best Telecom to provide three additional long distance products to the Q Comm merchant network. Q Comm will make the new cards available to its merchants in both PIN-only and POS activation formats.

The company also announced an agreement with Ready Mobile, a Mobile Virtual Network Operator to offer Ready Mobile and Mojo Mobile Phone-in-box kits and airtime.

Merchants that offer the Ready Mobile products refill the customer's airtime account using Q Comm's POS distribution solutions such as the Q Xpress terminal.

TNS Creates Alliances in Mexico and Italy

Avantel, a Mexican Internet protocol (IP)-based telecommunications services provider, signed an alliance with Transaction Network Services (TNS) to provide network transaction solutions to Mex-ican debit, credit and ATM processors.

Avantel TNS, the new solution, will merge Avantel's telecommunications infrastructure with TNS' POS technology.

Also, Findomestic, an Italian provider of consumer credit, outsourced the transport of its payments data to TNS. In a two-year deal, TNS will move Findomestic's credit card trans-actions from a dedicated in-house Itapac system to TNS' IP Dial solution.

Visa Adds S.P.I. Dynamics to Alliance

Visa International announced the addition of S.P.I. Dynamics Inc. to its strategic global alliance program and a minority investment in the Web application security testing software company. S.P.I. Dynamics develops and markets Web application security technologies that meet Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards.

ACQUISITIONS

EFunds Completes WildCard Systems Acquisition

EFunds Corp. recently completed the acquisition of WildCard Systems Inc. WildCard Systems is becoming eFunds Prepaid Solutions Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of eFunds.

APPOINTMENTS

Diebold Elects Board Member

Phillip R. Cox was elected to Diebold Inc.'s board of directors. Cox serves as President and Chief Executive Officer of Cox Financial Corp., and as a Director for Cincinnati Bell, the Federal Reserve Bank, the Cinergy Corp., the University of Cincinnati and Bethesda Hospital.

IDology Names CEO

John Dancu joined IDology as President and CEO. Dancu served as the President and Chief Operating Officer of Synchrologic Inc., as well as at Netzip Inc. IDology also received a significant capital investment from a group of investors led by Dancu. The company moved its corporate headquarters from Tallahassee, Fla. to Atlanta.

EVO Announces New Executives

EVO Merchant Services appointed Patricia Kelly to Vice President of Business Development and Communications. Kelly has more than 18 years of experience and most recently served as Executive Vice President of BannerDirect.

Prior to that, Kelly was Vice President of the Marketing Liaison Group at Chase Manhattan Bank.

EVO also appointed Mark Brady as Compliance Officer. Brady will support EVO Business Partners and ISOs in complying with association registration and marketing requirements.

Brady has more than 20 years in the bankcard business including six years with NaBanco and six years with MasterCard.

ClickPay Solutions Announces New CFO/COO

Check cashing service provider ClickPay Solutions Inc. appointed David Logsdon as Chief Financial Officer/Chief Operating Officer. Logsdon is a CPA with more than 30 years' financial management expertise, including analyst positions with Abbott Laboratories, Texas Instruments and Chemetron Corp.

ACH Direct Appoints Marketing VP

Deborah L. Matthews, AAP was appointed Vice President of Marketing for ACH Direct. Matthews currently serves as the Marketing and Education Coordinator for the Steering Committee of the Internet Council. She has been a member of the American Payroll Association's ACH Advisory Committee for the past five years.

Prior to joining ACH Direct, Matthews was the Director of Marketing and Member Services at SWACHA - The Electronic Payments Resource.

Commerciant Names Three Executives

Commerciant LP recently changed its management team. Hubert Vaz-Nayak joined the firm as Senior Vice President, Sales and Marketing.

Vaz-Nayak was most recently the Director of the IT Sector Program at the Houston Technology Center.

Also joining Commerciant is Marc Beauchamp as Vice President of Indirect Sales.

Beauchamp has built several successful bankcard organizations and is the author of "How to Survive and Thrive in the Merchant Services Industry."

Jonathan Andersson was promoted to Chief Technology Officer. Andersson jointly developed the invention of Commerciant's patented check scanning technology.

CO-OP Names National Relationship Manager

Leah Work was named National Relationship Manager for CO-OP Network.

Work has more than 20 years of industry experience and joins CO-OP Network after spending four years at GenPass Technologies Inc., where she developed strategic business plans and procedures to establish an ISO client relations department.