BCE Emergis Signs Agreement With Bank of America to Deliver B2B Invoice Presentment.

Business Editors

MONTREAL--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 25, 2001

-- Deal confirms Emergis market leadership with e-invoicing solution

-- Bank of America to offer e-Invoicing to corporations and commercial
businesses for use with their trading partners

BCE Emergis Inc. (TSE:IFM), one of the leading e-commerce service providers in North America, and Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) today announced a strategic agreement that will enable Bank of America to offer Emergis(R) e-Invoicing, BCE Emergis' electronic invoice presentment & payment solution (EIPP), to its corporations and commercial businesses around the world.

"This agreement with Bank of America represents another significant milestone for Emergis," stated Brian Edwards, Vice-Chairman and CEO of BCE Emergis. "It clearly positions us as the North American leader in business-to-business electronic invoice presentment and payment. It speaks to the strength of our technology in addressing complex business invoicing requirements, to the depth of our expertise in the financial services sector and to our positioning at the center of the order to payment cycle."

Edwards also pointed to the fact that through this agreement, his company now has three of the five largest U.S. financial institutions as customers and distribution partners for its EIPP service. He re-iterated that all these agreements follow the Company's transaction-based recurring revenue model.

For Emergis, this five-year, multimillion-dollar agreement will increase in value as the number of Bank of America customers and the frequency with which they use the invoicing solution rise. Bank of America has offered its customers e-invoicing and payment capabilities for several years. Through this arrangement with Emergis, Bank of America will not only be able to give its corporate, middle market and small business clients the ability to reap the benefits of EIPP with their trading partners, but will also be able to do so in multiple languages and multiple currencies. Bank of America clients ultimately will have access to electronic invoice presentment & payment in North America, as well as Europe, Asia and Latin America.

"Our alliance with BCE Emergis is an important part of our strategy to expand our e-commerce capabilities and provide global solutions to our clients as quickly as possible. As the industry leader in global treasury management services, Bank of America looks to companies like Emergis whose capabilities complement and enrich our overall offering to help keep us ahead of the competitive curve," said Ken Merrill, Director of Global Platform Management at Bank of America.

Through the Emergis e-Invoicing solution, Bank of America business clients and their trading customers will be able to replace labor-intensive and time-consuming activities with more efficient, real-time tools to manage their invoicing and payment process including dispute resolution and reconciliation. Users can benefit from reduced costs, a collaborative invoicing relationship and better control over cash management.

In addition, the Emergis e-Invoicing system will interface with Bank of America's global payment systems, which will convert and channel transactions through the appropriate US or international payment system.

BCE Emergis is a premier B2B e-commerce infrastructure provider, strategically focusing on market leadership in the transaction-intensive eHealth and financial services sectors. By layering technologically advanced e-commerce services on existing Internet-based platforms, Emergis offers its customers increasing value in their e-commerce adoption and ever-increasing levels of sophisticated services. These scalable solutions electronically transform business processes, such as buying, selling, invoicing and payment, and enable companies to succeed in the web-centric, cost-driven, and highly competitive global Internet economy. BCE Emergis' customers include leading North American banks and insurance companies. The Company's shares (TSE: IFM) are included in the TSE 100 composite index. Please visit BCE Emergis at www.emergis.com for more information on the Company.

This news release contains certain forward-looking statements that reflect the current views and/or expectations of BCE Emergis with respect to its performance, business and future events. Such statements are subject to a number of risks, uncertainties and assumptions. Actual results and events may vary significantly.