NEWS

Federal Reserve Restructures Check Processing

The Federal Reserve Banks will discontinue check processing at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York's East Rutherford Operations Center. The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia will now process the volume. The Fed expects the transition to take place in the second half of 2006, and hopes to increase the efficiency of its check-processing operations.

Hypercom Reaffirms Stock Repurchase

Hypercom Corp.'s Board of Directors reaffirmed its previously authorized share repurchase program of up to $10 million of the company's common stock. The company intends to repurchase shares from time to time in open market transactions or in privately negotiated transactions.

U.S. Credit Card Web Sites Prove Unreliable

Keynote Systems Inc. released the "Keynote Service Level Rankings for Credit Card Web Sites," a study of nine leading U.S. credit card services' Web sites. On the whole, the Web sites studied showed poorer than expected reliability. Performance was exceptionally bad for most of the sites over dial-up connections. Bank of America Corp. (BofA), Capital One Bank and MBNA Corp. were the best overall performers. BofA and MBNA were down less than three hours during the entire month of the study, while the worst performers reported more than 19 hours of downtime.

Lipman Closes Secondary Offering

Lipman Electronic Engineering Ltd. closed the previously announced public offering by certain selling shareholders of 1,973,044 of Lipman's ordinary shares at a price of $29.75 per share. Additionally, Merrill Lynch & Co. exercised in full its option to purchase an additional 295,956 shares from two of the selling shareholders to cover over allotments.

PRE Solutions Files Lawsuit

PRE Solutions Inc. filed a lawsuit against Dynamic Telecard LLC over Dynamic's breach of its transaction processing agreement with PRE. PRE's suit alleges that Dynamic did not honor its commitment to use PRE's systems to process merchants with whom Dynamic has distribution agreements and failed to uphold its agreement not to solicit PRE's customers.

TNB Issues Credit Card White Paper

A white paper from TNB Card Services provides insight into the most successful and effective marketing techniques for credit union credit card programs. The paper, "Six Habits of Highly Effective Card Programs: A Best Practices Approach to Effectively Marketing Credit Cards for Credit Unions," addresses six major card marketing considerations, such as portfolio management, pricing and reward programs. The white paper is available online at www.tnbcard.com/White%20Papers/Six%20Habits/Default.asp .

ViVOtech Honored

ViVOtech received the 2005 Frost & Sullivan Electronic Payment Enabling Technology of the Year Award. The award recognizes ViVOtech's innovative payment solutions that have improved the consumer experience and helped accelerate global market acceptance of contactless technology.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

CheckFree CEO Named Entrepreneur of Year

The Atlanta chapter of the Association for Corporate Growth presented CheckFree Corp. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Pete Kight with the "2005 Entrepreneur of the Year" award. Kight founded CheckFree in 1981 in his grandmother's basement to automate monthly payments of health club dues. Today, more than 16 million consumers pay their bills online from nearly 1,600 sites powered by CheckFree.

SLIM CD Certified

SLIM CD Inc. has been certified on the Certegy platform for point-of-presentment paper check verification and guarantee services. This certification allows merchants to use Certegy's risk management services for checks accepted at their locations.

Visa Direct Exchange Roll Out Completed

Visa U.S.A. announced the final implementation of Visa Direct Exchange, a five-year project to redesign and reengineer the way U.S. financial institutions and retailers connect with Visa's payment processing network. Direct Exchange has replaced a legacy system, based on proprietary, mainframe technology, with a payment infrastructure based on Internet technologies and simplified communications links.

PARTNERSHIPS

CO-OP Reaches Agreement with Instant Cash ATM Network

CO-OP Network, the nation's largest credit union EFT network, and the Instant Cash ATM network have opened a gateway link. Under the agreement, credit unions that use Instant Cash Services as their EFT processor can now join CO-OP Network for surcharge-free, nationwide ATM access.

CrossCheck Expands Services

CrossCheck Inc. and Transworld Systems Inc. joined forces to make a profit recovery service available as part of CrossCheck's service offerings. CrossCheck will market the Profit Recovery program to customers in the retail, medical, service and automotive industries.

Descomm Signs Three Agreements

Descomm and POS Portal signed a multi-year deployment and equipment rental services contract for support of Descomm's resellers. Descomm is an ISO/MSP for HSBC Bank USA, National Association. In other company news, Descomm formed separate agreements with Integrated Leasing Corp. and Global eTelecom Inc. Integrated Leasing will provide leasing options to Descomm's resellers. Global eTelecom will provide Descomm with a suite of check solutions that Descomm will market nationwide.

eProcessing Network Certified With Global Payments

eProcessing Network LLC certified its transaction processing software with Global Payments Inc. eProcessing Network is certified to process eCommerce with 3D Secure and UCAF, direct marketing, retail and recurring transactions.

First Data Renews MABA Agreement

First Data Corp. signed a multi-year contract extension with MidAmerica BankCard Association (MABA). MABA was First Data's first bankcard processing client. MABA will continue to use credit card transaction processing and other card portfolio management services provided by First Data for its 3.5 million accounts. Zions Bancorporation, an MABA member, will continue to use First Data for its 660,000 signature-based debit cards.

ICE Forms Agreement With FDMS, Fleet National Bank

International Card Establishment Inc. (ICE) entered into an agreement with First Data Merchant Services Corp. (FDMS) and Fleet National Bank. Fleet National Bank will processes merchant credit card transactions as an acquiring bank, and FDMS will be responsible for all other processing and accounting functions. This agreement establishes ICE as a direct credit card processor, which means ICE can sell and transfer its merchant account portfolio to a third party.

OneLynk Alliance Adds Two Members

RBS Lynk added two members to the OneLynk Alliance, RBS Lynk's value-added reseller program. Interactive Designs Inc. and Foremost Business Systems will offer RBS Lynk's payment processing services to their customers.

SmartConnect and ISS Retail Partner

SmartConnect announced a technology development partnership with ISS Retail. Through the partnership, ISS Retail's TouchPointPOS customers will have the ability to combine digital video capabilities with POS data to improve retail business operations.

TSYS Reaches Agreement With Capital One

TSYS reached an agreement in principle with Capital One Financial Corp. to provide processing services for Capital One's North American portfolio of consumer and small-business credit card accounts. TSYS and Capital One agreed to enter into a period of exclusive negotiations.

VeriFone and Pay By Touch Partner

VeriFone Holdings Inc. signed a joint development and marketing agreement with Pay By Touch, aimed at furthering the adoption of consumer biometric payment solutions. The companies will work together to enhance the security, encryption and compatibility of each other's solutions. Both companies will offer the Pay By Touch consumer biometric payment service as an integrated offering with VeriFone's family of payment solutions.

ACQUISITIONS

Alliance Data Systems Acquires Atrana Solutions

Alliance Data Systems Corp. has acquired POS technology solutions provider Atrana Solutions Inc. Atrana's 30 employees will now be Alliance employees. Atrana provides support of products that are sold, activated and reloaded at the POS.

First Data Acquires Vigo Remittance

First Data will acquire Vigo Remittance Corp., an international provider of electronic money transfer services. Vigo operates through 3,700 agent locations in the United States and 47,000 payment locations worldwide. The companies did not disclose terms ofthe agreement.

NOVA Acquires Merchant Acquiring Business

NOVA Information Systems entered into an agreement to acquire Certegy's merchant acquiring portfolio. NOVA will provide processing services, customer service and support operations to Certegy's 14,000 merchant locations. NOVA will sell Certegy's regional check products through its merchant sales force, and Certegy will provide NOVA with new merchant referrals through its sales representatives.

Pipeline Data Moves Forward With Portfolio Purchase

Pipeline Data Inc. authorized the issuance of more than 2 million unregistered shares to complete the purchase of merchant portfolios from Millennium Merchant Services Inc. Included in the Millennium acquisition are 1,801 merchant accounts representing approximately $73 million in annual consumer charge volume.

U.S. Bank Acquires Genpass

U.S. Bank purchased Genpass Inc. and its subsidiaries. This transaction makes U.S. Bank the nation's second largest, third-party ATM processor and the second-largest bank-owned ATM network. Approximately 350 Genpass employees will become employees of U.S. Bank as part of the acquisition. The bank will also retain Genpass' Texas processing location and operating platform.

APPOINTMENTS

VECTORsgi Names Alexander Vice President and CFO

VECTORsgi named Mark Alexander Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Alexander has more than 25 years of financial leadership experience, including serving as Senior Vice President of finance and business management for the Carreker Corp.'s Global Payments Technology Group. Additionally, he was Senior Vice President and Internal CFO of TrinTel Communications.

Caron Joins Wholesale Payment Solutions

Stacey Caron joined Wholesale Payment Solutions as Vice President of Operations. Caron will manage all operations and work with the President and CEO to implement a new business development strategy. Previously, Caron held a Sales Director position with Paymentech Merchant Services.

RBS Lynk Names Vice Presidents of National Sales, Indirect Sales

RBS Lynk hired Jim Jaworski as Vice President of its National Sales division. Jaworski brings 20 years' experience in sales management and consulting, focusing on IT business solutions for large-scale retailers. Prior to joining RBS Lynk, Jaworski spent the majority of his career at Dun & Bradstreet Corp. RBS Lynk promoted Nerino Mayer to Vice President of its Indirect Sales division. The company named Mayer to the position following the retirement of Wayne Damron, who recruited Mayer to lead the Internet Business Development Unit in 1999. Prior to joining RBS Lynk, Mayer worked in business development roles for Hewlett-Packard, VeriFone, and Hypercom.

Visa International Appoints CTO

Visa International appointed Terry V. Milholland Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer. Most recently, Milholland served as Chief Information Officer/CTO for Electronic Data Systems Corp. and previously held the post of CIO at Boeing Co. Milholland will oversee the information technology management functions of Visa, including intellectual property, data protection and information security.

Pay By Touch Appoints President and COO

Pay By Touch appointed John Morris President and Chief Operating Officer. Morris joins Pay By Touch following a 23-year career with IBM. Most recently, Morris led the distribution sector for the Americas at IBM, where his division generated annual revenues of $5 billion.

Renzulli Joins Strategic Management Partners

Robert Renzulli joined Strategic Management Partners (SMP) as an Associate. Renzulli will focus on merchant acquiring technology and data security analysis. Renzulli joins SMP from Payment Processing Inc. He also served as Vice President of Solutions Development for First National Merchant Solutions and Manager of Global Alliance Sales Engineers at Clear Commerce Corp.

BOTTOM LINES

• Swedish furniture retailer Ikea Group plans to open four to five new U.S. stores every year, and will focus on new markets including Phoenix, Atlanta and Dallas, "Business Week" reported.
• In May, video game manufacturer and retailer Nintendo opened Nintendo World, a two-story, block-long store at 10 Rockefeller Plaza in New York City.
• Burger King Corp. Chief Executive Officer Greg Brenneman recently announced plans to conduct an initial public offering (IPO) of the fast food chain in 2006, "USA Today" reported. Burger King profits increased every month for the 15-month period ending April 2005.
• Online auction site eBay Inc. will buy Shopping.com, an online comparison shopping site, for $620 million.