Allfirst Provides Funding for Next Generation Product for Internet Business Banking; Investment Will Help Politzer & HANEY Develop Leading Edge Web-based Financial Products and Services.

Business Editors

DUBLIN, Ireland--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 12, 2000

Allied Irish Banks, p.l.c. (AIB) (NYSE: AIB;AIBPR:FMBPR) today announced that its wholly owned US subsidiary Allfirst Financial Inc. (Allfirst) will provide Politzer & HANEY with funding for continued development and rollout of eConnection, the infrastructure of that company's next generation suite of Web-based financial products and services. eConnection provides financial services companies with the ability to serve as their customers' corporate portal for all financial services activities and e-commerce transactions.

This marks a new chapter in the long relationship between Allfirst and Politzer & HANEY. Allfirst has been a Politzer & HANEY customer since the Massachusetts-based software developer built its first corporate banking products in 1987. "Allfirst welcomes this opportunity to invest and participate in the development of the next-generation e-commerce product suite," said J. William Murray, Allfirst senior vice president of e-commerce. "We believe this to be an excellent investment opportunity."

Citizens Capital Corporation and Merrill Lynch, also Politzer & HANEY customers, along with Boston Millennia Partners and Shawmut Capital are the other venture capital firms participating in this mezzanine-round of funding.

"We are especially pleased that our customers are giving us this strong vote of confidence in the strategic direction we are taking," said Christopher J. Haney, president and CEO of Politzer & HANEY. "These and other customers are asking us to leverage our position in the financial services industry into a leadership role in supplying enabling technology for Web-based business-to-business transactions."

Founded in 1983, Politzer & HANEY is the principal, full-solution provider of corporate electronic banking services. More than 350 financial institutions, including 8 of the top 10 banks, are utilizing and leveraging Politzer & HANEY products to support their customer relationships, corporate sales and competitive position within the marketplace.

The ramp-up will enable Politzer & HANEY to accelerate development of its eConnection technology, the foundation for the company's next-generation suite of Web-based financial products and services, which will be rolled out in stages to initial beta-site customers during the summer and fall of this year.

The eConnection infrastructure provides a single, online channel for the delivery of EBusiness solutions through three product suites. The first suite, eTransaction, is a modular design that builds on the capabilities of Politzer & HANEY's Web Cash Manager(TM) product. It provides secure payment, fund management and investment and disbursement and reporting services that financial services institutions can package to serve their unique targeted markets, industry segments and individual corporate customers.

eWork, the second product suite, creates a gateway to the user's workday through personalization and automation tools for customer self-service, relationship management and one-to-one marketing. The third product suite, eBusinessLink, enables companies of all sizes to conduct secure ECommerce transactions via XML-based Electronic Data Interchange, using the Enterprise Application Interface to integrate existing processes and systems into the eConnection infrastructure. With eBusinessLink, end-user clients open their doors to the entire ECommerce process, from procurement through supply chain integration, including catalog information, request for quote, purchase order, invoice, shipping notice and payment.

Allfirst Financial Inc. is a regional, diversified financial services company headquartered in Baltimore, MD, offering a full range of financial services including banking, trust, investment and insurance to retail, business and commercial customers. Its banking subsidiary, Allfirst Bank, operates over 260 bank branches and more than 575 ATMs throughout Maryland, Pennsylvania, Washington D.C., northern Virginia and Delaware. Allfirst Financial Inc.'s assets were $17.5 billion as of December 31, 1999. Information about Allfirst Financial Inc. is available at www.allfirst.com.