Advanced Financial Solutions Provides Key Technologies to Build World's First National Check Archive in Singapore.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

OKLAHOMA CITY--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 27, 2001

Advanced Financial Solutions, Inc. (AFS):

National Image Archive Will Create Paperless Check Inter-Bank Clearing

Process Digital Archive Based On AFS ImageDepot Technology

Advanced Financial Solutions, Inc. (AFS) has been awarded a major contract to help build the world's first national check image archive in Singapore, announced AFS President and CEO Gary Nelson.

"This contract represents a substantial business opportunity for AFS," Nelson said. "Our involvement in the Singapore project puts us at the forefront of the next bold technological advancement in the world banking industry -- large shared digital check archival, retrieval and storage systems."

The archive will house digitized images of all paper checks deposited and cleared between the country's banks. Once the archive is fully operational it will store electronic images of every check written in Singapore, eliminating the need to transport paper checks between bank branches and the country's central clearinghouse facility.

"Once just the dream of technology mavens, a national check image archive will soon become a reality for banks in Singapore," stated Nelson. "Singapore, a nation that has been a leader in payment systems innovation for the last 20 years, has taken a bold step toward paperless payments processing. As a result, it is creating a model for other nations to replicate where bankers and central bankers desire the operational efficiencies gained from reducing the paper flow of check payments," Nelson said.

The Singapore Clearing House Association is establishing the National Image Archive (NIA), an essential element of a sweeping modernization initiative. The initiative builds upon the country's current electronic clearing, archival and retrieval systems to create a paperless inter-bank clearing process, known as check truncation.

AFS, a leader in image check capture, archival and retrieval systems, is building the archival component based upon the company's AFS ImageDepot software technology.

The company is also one of three "preferred providers" of check image capture technology to Singapore banks. Banks installing AFS ImageVision will use the system to capture images (front and back) of checks. Those images will be used in lieu of paper for in-house processing and transmitting via high-speed broadband communications links to the Automated Clearing House and its NIA. AFS ImageDepot will drive this process.

Image-based archive and retrieval systems evolved in recent years into a powerful capability in the banking industry. Banks use these advanced technologies to store digital images and associated information captured from checks and other paper documents. Personnel throughout the bank can then retrieve the archived images, as needed, eliminating all paper hand-offs.

In some places of the world, such as the United States, banks are beginning to form large check archives. Singapore, however, is the only nation with a national archive able to store all checks deposited at any bank in the country.

Since independence in 1965, the island nation of Singapore has seen rapid economic growth, and the government and private sectors have responded with initiatives that have positioned the nation's banking sector at the forefront of technological change. In addition to advanced check truncation, Singapore also boasts a national smart card program, and supports real-time, online settlement of large-dollar funds and securities transfers.

When the NIA is completed later this year Singapore's will be the only national check truncation and archive program in the world.

"The long-term benefits to the Singapore's overall banking industry will be substantial in terms of cost and operational efficiencies associated with check clearing, fraud detection and improved customer service," reported Nelson.

AFS is a leading provider of image-based payment and transaction software technologies to banks and other organizations with over 6,500 installations of its software systems worldwide. AFS ImageVision is a Windows NT-based system that supports electronic capture, encoding and clearing of checks and other documents. AFS ImageDepot allows users to archive checks and other digitized documents in a central location, and to retrieve those images remotely, as needed, in a few seconds time.

Headquartered in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, AFS maintains offices worldwide, including an office in Singapore. Inc. Magazine ranked AFS as one of America's fastest growing private firms in 1998, 1999 and 2000. Most recently, the company was a finalist for Entrepreneur of the Year presented by the international accounting firm Ernst and Young.