NEWS

majority of the businesses eligible to recover money in the $3 billion Visa U.S.A./MasterCard International class action settlement will miss their opportunity for a refund, according to Spectrum Settlement Recovery. Originally, the administrator indicated it would notify eligible claimants and supply most of the data needed to make a claim for a full refund. However, a recently filed court document shows as many as one-third of the eligible businesses, approximately 2.8 million claimants, may not be included in data provided by the networks.

Cross-Border Debit Volume Increases

Growing cross-border PIN-debit transaction totals from NYCE indicate an increased adoption by Canadian consumers and a gain for U.S. retailers. From the launch of cross-border debit in October 2004 through April 2005, Canadian shoppers initiated more than 400,000 PIN-debit transactions in the United States, representing almost $26.5 million. Supermarkets accounted for half of the transactions; gas stations, clothing stores, discount retailers and drug stores also saw significant volumes.

Smart Card Alliance Council Created

The Smart Card Alliance formed a Contactless Payments Council, which will work to facilitate the adoption of contactless payments in the United States through education programs for consumers, merchants and issuers. The co-chairs are Francine Dubois, Oberthur Card Systems; Wendy Humphrey, First Data Corp.; and Mohammad Khan, ViVOtech. A steering committee, composed of a cross section of the financial payments industry and contactless smart chip technology vendors, will manage the council.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Schoedinger to Leave First Data

Jim Schoedinger, President of First Data's Card Issuing Services, is leaving the company to pursue other opportunities.

Global Payments Makes Forbes List

Forbes.com ranked Global Payments Inc. among "The Top 100 Best Mid-Cap Stocks." The Web site ranked Global Payments, listed under the category of "electronic transaction processing services," thirty-fourth.

Heartland Sets Records

Heartland Payment Systems Inc. set three new processing records recently. For the first time in the company's history, it handled more than $2 billion in Visa card processing volume and more than $1 billion in MasterCard processing volume within the same month, thus breaking a new record by reaching $3.4 billion in processing volume in one month.

Hypercom Certified by Merchant Link

Hypercom Corp.'s IN-tact 1101 converter device for Internet-enabling legacy Hypercom POS terminals has been certified for use on the Merchant Link siteNET Internet Gateway. The certification enables merchants with legacy Hypercom equipment to use the IN-tact converter in conjunction with siteNET to route credit and debit card transactions over the Internet for faster payment authorizations.

MUZO Opens Moscow Office

MUZO, a.s., Global Payments' Prague-based subsidiary, recently opened an office in Moscow. Global Payments provides credit card issuing services to one of the largest providers of consumer credit in the Russian Federation, Home Credit and Finance Bank. Stanislav Coufal will head up the Russian operations. Coufal joined MUZO in 2004 and served three years as a Vice Chairman of the Board of the Czech-Russian Bank in Moscow.

RBS Lynk Certifies Omni 3730

RBS Lynk Class-A certified and deployed VeriFone's Omni 3730 series payment solutions. RBS Lynk offers a range of payment capabilities and transaction features for the Omni 3730 series including credit, debit, gift, loyalty, EBT and check authorization services.

RDM Earns NOVA Certification

RDM Corp. earned Class-B certification from NOVA Information Systems. NOVA has Class-B certified the "all in one" credit, debit, EBT and e-check application on the RDM SYNERGY payment terminal.

Transmodus Opens in Texas

Transmodus recently opened a business consulting office in San Antonio. Rob Clawson will run the office. Clawson spent the last six years with an online check transaction company building relationships with merchants, processing professionals, ISOs and corporate sales staffs.

PARTNERSHIPS

BankWest and First Data Form Australian Alliance

BankWest, a member of the HBOS Australia group, and First Data formed an alliance for merchant acquiring services in the Australian market.

The alliance will provide acquiring services for BankWest merchants and their acceptance of electronic payments. The business will move to First Data's merchant processing platform over a period of eight months.

Global Payments and HSBC Form Joint Venture

Global Payments formed a joint venture with The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corp. Ltd (HSBC) to provide payment processing services to merchants in the Asia-Pacific region.

Global Payments will pay HSBC $67.2 million in cash to acquire a 56% ownership interest in the venture. In addition, the bank agreed to a 10-year marketing alliance in which HSBC will refer new merchant customers to the joint venture for payment processing in 10 Asia-Pacific countries and territories.

Heuristic Signs Agreement With PPS

Heuristic Technologies Inc. signed a marketing and sales agreement with Pure Payment Solutions LLC (PPS), an ISO specializing in transaction processing services for the healthcare and retail industries. Under the three-year non-exclusive agreement, PPS will market Heuristic's suite of software products to healthcare providers.

Lipman Receives Order From CBORD

The CBORD Group Inc., a supplier of campus card, housing and foodservice management systems for the university market, selected Lipman as the preferred POS terminal provider for its Odyssey Campus Card solution. CBORD will brand and market the Lipman 8320 as the CBORD Epic Card Reader. Lipman received and supplied its initial order from CBORD in June.

Q Comm, IPP Partner

Q Comm International Inc. announced the first of two phases in a partnership with IPP of America Inc. Q Comm will resell IPP's bill pay service on VeriFone 3750 terminals, extending IPP's payment centers onto Q Comm's nationwide network of retailers.

The second phase will be to embed IPP's bill pay service into Q Comm's transaction processing system and extend support to all terminal types supported by Q Comm.

Select Payment Enters Into Patent License With LML

Select Payment Processing Inc. entered into a patent license agreement with LML Patent Corp. The agreement provides Select Payment with a license to LML's patents for electronic check conversion in the Direct Consumer Field, including LML's U.S. Patent Nos. 5,484,988; 6,164,528 and 6,283,366. Terms of the agreement are confidential.

Shinhan Allies With AmEx

Shinhan Card formed a strategic alliance to issue American Express Co. (AmEx)-branded cards in South Korea. It becomes the first bankcard issuer of AmEx cards in the country. The companies expect to launch the new products in the second quarter of 2006. The AmEx global merchant network will accept them.

TransFirst Signs Deal With Checkgateway; Offers Currency Conversion

Checkgateway signed an agreement with TransFirst to provide card processing services to Checkgateway clients through TransFirst. Checkgateway will immediately begin referring merchants to TransFirst's ePayment Services division in Omaha, Neb.

TransFirst also announced that merchants using TransFirst's suite of payment processing solutions now have access to E4X Inc.'s technology and multicurrency services for managing global sales, including all aspects of foreign exchange.

VeriFone Receives Order From Mexico; Selected by Retriever

A Mexican bank ordered more than 10,000 VeriFone wireless payment solutions to be used primarily by Mexico's 7,000 petroleum stations. FIMPE, a joint venture of 15 Mexican banks, will buy and distribute more than 300,000 electronic payment systems over the next five years.

The first phase of the initiative is aimed at gas stations and pharmacies.

In other news, Retriever Payment Systems selected VeriFone as the preferred provider of payment solutions. Retriever will offer its customers the full line of VeriFone payment solutions.

Visa and Ticket Exchange Form Partnership

Visa International entered into a partnership with Ticket Exchange. Using Visa's Concierge service, Visa Signature and Visa Infinite cardholders can immediately request tickets to any event worldwide 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.

ACQUISITIONS

Boston Clearing House Merged Into The Clearing House

The Boston Clearing House (BCH) has become part of The Clearing House Payments Co.'s SVPCO-Check Services business. The Clearing House will absorb the clearing of more than 13 million checks monthly with a daily value of $850 million for BCH banks, thrifts and credit unions in Boston.

IDS to Be Integrated With CheckFree

CheckFree Corp. purchased Integrated Decision Systems Inc. (IDS), a provider of enterprise portfolio management solutions. CheckFree will integrate the business with its Investment Services division, which provides processing services to broker/dealers, money managers and investment consultants.

APPOINTMENTS

EXS Hires VP

Ken Boekhaus joined Electronic Exchange Systems (EXS) as Vice President of Marketing and Business Development. Boekhaus has served in numerous sales, marketing and business development positions while working for a software company, a terminal manufacturer and a radio frequency identification payments company.

NetBank Appoints Brown

NetBank Payment Systems Inc. (NPS) named Bridget Brown to lead the company's POS Installation and Support Team. Brown joined NPS from North American Bancard, where she most recently served as Manager of the Deployment/POS help desk.

Hypercom Names CEO, Chairman

Hypercom appointed William Keiper Chief Executive Officer and President, and Daniel D. Diethelm Chairman of the Board of Directors. Keiper had been serving as Chairman, interim CEO and President of the company since March. He has more than 30 years of business experience. He was President and Chief Operating Officer of MicroAge Inc. and Chairman and CEO of Artisoft Inc. He currently serves on the Boards of Directors of JDA Software Group Inc.; Zones Inc.; and Smith Micro Corp. Consistent with the Board's prior determination to divide the roles of Chairman and CEO, Daniel D. Diethelm was elected Chairman of the Board of Directors. Diethelm has served as a Director of the company since January 2004. He is President of 4Group LLC and Managing Partner of Sudan Funding LLC. He previously served as President and CEO of Aeropower Resources Inc., as well as CEO of Sebec Corp.

TransFirst Chooses Midwest Vice President

TransFirst named Barry Ervi Midwest Vice President of Business Development for TransFirst's Independent Sales Services division. Prior to joining TransFirst, Ervi served as a Business Development Manager for Paymentech LP. He has also held sales and management positions with Chase Merchant Services and First USA Bank.

Harris Hired as President and COO

Charles J. Harris will join Electronic Clearing House Inc. as President and COO. Harris will oversee the company's operations, sales and business development activities. Previously he served in executive, operational and sales leadership positions at organizations including Paymentech and Electronic Data Systems. Most recently he was President of Merchant Link.

Jones Joins Shera

Shera International Ltd. appointed Jason Jones President and General Manager. Jones joins Shera from Motorola, where he served as Director of Corporate Initiatives. Prior to Motorola, he spent 14 years with General Electric, where he held various global assignments. His last position was President and General Manager of GE Supply Logisitics.

ISD Appoints VP of Sales

ISD Corp. appointed Kevin Potrzeba as Vice President of Sales. Potrzeba brings more than 20 years of software sales management experience to ISD. Most recently, he was Vice President of Worldwide Sales for Interface Software. Prior to Interface, he was the Vice President of North American Sales for Showcase Corp.; SPSS Inc., acquired Showcase, where Potrzeba served as Vice President of North American Sales.

Global Payments Names Chief Sales and Marketing Officer

Kevin J. Schultz was appointed Executive Vice President-Chief Sales and Marketing Officer of Global Payments with responsibilities for the company's domestic direct and indirect sales, key customer support and worldwide marketing activities. Schultz most recently served as Executive Vice President, Client Services for Visa U.S.A.

Wilson New Comdata VP

Comdata Corp. named Mark Wilson Vice President of ISO Merchant Services in its newly formed Comdata Processing Systems business unit. Wilson formerly served as Executive Vice President in ProfitPoint's sales division. Prior to joining ProfitPoint, he was with iPayment where he recruited ISOs and agents as well as identified merchant portfolios for acquisition.