ATM, Point-of-Sale Transactions Processed Without a Hitch By PULSE EFT Association on 9/9/99 Testing Milestone.

HOUSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 15, 1999--

For more than 20 million PULSE(R) debit cardholders, it was business as usual on Y2K testing milestone 9/9/99, with PULSE(R) EFT Association processing in excess of a million transactions without a hitch.

But for PULSE, one of the nation's leading shared electronic funds transfer networks, it was a full-scale dress rehearsal for its command center which will be activated again at year end to monitor the millennium date roll.

"Intensive preparations over the past two years have provided a level of certainty that PULSE would be able to complete successfully all ATM and point-of-sale (POS) transactions through the network on this date," said Stan Paur, PULSE president and CEO. "This successful test should reinforce consumer confidence in the network."

Sept. 9, 1999, was significant because historically "9/9/99" was a notation used to designate "end of file" rather than an actual date, so the potential for program logic errors existed.

"This milestone provided an excellent opportunity to give both the PULSE network and command center a test run in anticipation of year end," Paur said. "The Y2K team, with representatives from all pertinent facets of our network, was able to function efficiently and to monitor the status of transactions through the network."

The command center was activated at 3 a.m. September 8, and that afternoon at 3 p.m. the first transaction dated 9/9/99 was processed successfully from Korea, which is 16 hours ahead of Central Daylight Time. Following a detailed monitoring plan, the command center team performed periodic checks on the system hardware and confirmed that the settlement of transactions was running correctly by reviewing output reports.

"This test reconfirms that member financial institutions, merchants and cardholders should expect a day of normal operations on January 1," Paur said. "This successful exercise should help reassure consumers that the sky is not going to fall on Y2K, and that the best advice is to stay calm and not to take any irrational or reckless steps to withdraw large amounts of cash from their financial institutions in anticipation of year end."

Paur and other executives from the nation's leading financial services networks were recently in Washington, D.C., to brief federal regulators on the unprecedented actions which have been taken by the networks to assure that consumers will be able to count on uninterrupted service from ATMs and POS terminals at Y2K.

PULSE is a not-for-profit, shared electronic funds transfer network comprised of more than 2,000 member banks, credit unions and thrifts in Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas. The network features more than 52,000 ATMs and more than 199,000 PULSE(R) PAY point-of sale-terminals in all 50 states throughout the country. For more information, visit the PULSE Web site at www.pulse-eft.com.