Clear2Pay powers East European card payments at Ceská sporitelna

Clear2Pay’s ProxyPay platform deployed in the Czech Republic

Brussels, 16 November 2004 - Clear2Pay, the international technology provider of next generation payment solutions for financial institutions today announces the deployment of its ProxyPay acquiring platform by Ceská sporitelna, the largest commercial bank in the Czech Republic.

ProxyPay allows merchants to accept card payments for purchases made over the Internet. The system is one of the very first to accept Visa, MasterCard, Visa Electron and Maestro, covering the vast majority of card types used for internet transactions in a secure way. The ProxyPay technology has been implemented at the bank and its merchants have been linked to the latest technology.

Miloslav Krecan, Director of Card Centre Section at Ceská sporitelna comments: "We have a strong foothold in our home market with an ever-growing base of over 2,7 million card holders. Security is top on our list of priorities, obviously for executing secure transactions today, but also in the light of customer confidence in the credit card as a reliable payments product. The ProxyPay platform gives us a secure and flexible environment today and in Clear2Pay a niche partner who will continue to maintain it at top security levels."

Ronny Leplae, VP Cards and General Manager at Clear2Pay ads: 'The agreement with Ceská sporitelna is a major event for the acceptance of Verified by Visa and MasterCard SecureCode in Eastern Europe. It is also a big opportunity for Clear2Pay to enter this expanding market'.

About Clear2Pay

Clear2Pay is an innovative e-finance company focused on delivering globally applicable solutions for secure, timely electronic payments. Headquartered in Brussels, Belgium, the company's focus is to facilitate banks and financial organizations in their provision of electronic payments services. Clear2Pay's technology helps to reduce transaction processing costs, and to deliver new, compelling e-payment services in a competitive way. Clear2Pay's payment solutions offer organisations easy, branded ways for their customers to pay online: from complex trade-supporting business-to-business environments, through e-commerce applications, to retail payments and micro payments. Functions embrace payments origination, reporting, linkage with back-office processing systems, clearing, netting and settlement. Clients include global and major regional financial institutions such as ING, SEB Kort, LuottoKunta, VISA Europe, MasterCard, ANZ, National Australia Bank, ABN AMRO, Commonwealth Bank, Krung Thai Computer Services (KCS) and Reserve Bank of Australia. Clear2Pay operates out of Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, United Kingdom, Australia and Singapore and currently employs over 120 staff.
More information is available on www.clear2pay.com.

About Ceská sporitelna

Ceská sporitelna is a member of the strong Central European financial group of Erste Bank. Ceská sporitelna is a modern bank that is geared towards small-scale clients, small and medium-sized companies, towns and municipalities. Ceská sporitelna plays also indispensable role in the financing of large companies and corporations. Financial Group of Ceská sporitelna, with almost 5.5 million clients is the largest bank on the market by number of clients. Ceská sporitelna has issued more than 2.7 million payment cards, has a network of roughly 650 branches and operates 1,073 ATM's. Ceská sporitelna ranks among leading securities dealers on the Czech capital market.
More info on www.csas.cz.

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Contacts for More Information:

Clear2Pay NV/SA
Conny Dorrestijn - VP Marketing and Communications
E:
M: +31 651 067201

Ceská sporitelna a.s.
Klára Gajdusková - Press Officer
E:
M: +420 261 074 460