Banking Risks Accelerate Compassoft European Expansion.

Societe Generale Fraud Underscores Importance of Spreadsheet Risk Control

SCOTTS VALLEY, Calif & READING, England -- Compassoft, the market leader for Enterprise Spreadsheet Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) controls, announced today that it is expanding its European headquarters in Reading, England. The appointment of additional sales and support staff is in direct response to a dramatic increase in interest for its risk management solution amid significant unrest in the European and Global Banking and Finance sectors.

As illustrated by several cases of massive errors and fraud, such as the recent EU4.7 Billion ($7 Billion) fraud at Societe Generale, there is now more than ever a heightened recognition that banks, financial organizations and large corporations face significant exposure to both their fiscal operations and market reputation from uncontrolled data. With recent reports stating that over 32 percent of business information resides within spreadsheets, any lack of control, particularly in trading environments, can have dire consequences for an organization.

"Spreadsheets are being used for business critical transactions every day," said Paul Bach, CEO of Compassoft. "However, it is all too common to see a lack of even basic controls on these spreadsheets, let alone the type of controls that could be used to detect serious fraud or errors. If losses such as those suffered by Societe Generale are to be avoided in the future then it is imperative that companies monitor spreadsheet use on a broad scale, particularly in banking and finance organizations."

Compassoft provides spreadsheet discovery, risk management and control solutions that enable large companies to address the risk of thousands or tens of thousands of distributed spreadsheets by automating the discovery and risk profiling processes. While other companies may focus on controlling a handful of spreadsheets they have identified as high risk, most losses are the result of information that is distributed and difficult to identify without a comprehensive and automated solution. Compassoft advises companies to monitor and control all of their spreadsheets because it is most often the ones that aren't being watched that do the most damage.

"We are seeing significant growth in demand in the UK and across Europe for software solutions that can mitigate and manage risk from uncontrolled spreadsheets and databases," said Mark Plant, vice president of European operations at Compassoft. "With this expansion we will be better equipped to respond to this growth, and be in a position to work with the increasing number of organizations who are seeing the risk associated with spreadsheets as an increasing priority."

About Compassoft

Compassoft is the market leader for enterprise spreadsheet Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) control solutions. Compassoft Enterprise[TM] enables corporations to manage and control spreadsheets based on business risk policy, automating the continuous discovery and prioritization of spreadsheets throughout the enterprise. By detecting policy exceptions among the thousands of spreadsheets and providing a secure control framework for them, Compassoft's solutions have improved controls at more than 180 major companies, including the Big Four accounting firms, Allergan, Allied Irish Banks, Bank of America, Bruce Power, CitiGroup, Eli Lilly, HP, Irish Life, Lloyds TSB, Prudential, Sydney Futures Exchange, Tulane University and Venetian Casinos. For more information, please visit www.compassoft.com.