Banks Capitalizing on Profitable Wholesale Banking Market with S1 Business Solutions.

Business Editors

ATLANTA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 3, 2003

Increase in Sales Over Last Year Validates Banks' Use of S1 Business Applications to Increase Market Share and Improve Bottom Line

With nine of the top 20 financial institutions in the United States and more than 600 banks worldwide leveraging S1's Business Solutions, S1 Corporation (Nasdaq: SONE) continues to enable financial institutions of all sizes to capitalize on new revenue opportunities in the wholesale banking market. S1 has witnessed an upsurge in the past year for banks purchasing S1 Business Solutions to enhance market penetration, replace legacy systems, and maximize fee generation. S1's comprehensive suite of wholesale banking solutions, which includes S1 Business Banking, S1 Corporate Banking, S1 Trade Finance and S1 IBS Cash Management, provides banks with a full range of functionality to service the smallest to largest business customers on a global basis.

The growing number of banks that are selecting S1 Business Solutions range from top 50 banks such as Wells Fargo and FleetBoston Financial, to community and regional banks including Peoples, Inc. and Mercantile Bank. These banks are turning to S1 to help them capture market share in the lucrative wholesale banking market, particularly in the rapidly growing small business segment. TowerGroup recently estimated that within the $10+ billion total cash management market, U.S. financial institutions have generated approximately 39 percent of the revenues from large corporate clients and 26 percent from small businesses. In an effort to further tap into this growing market, TowerGroup also predicts that U.S. banks will spend approximately $4 billion on cash management-related technology in 2004, an increase of more than six percent over 2003 spending levels.

Peoples, Inc., a $650 million asset three-bank holding company in Colorado, Kansas and New Mexico, recently switched from another software vendor to gain the advanced functionality required by small business owners, as well as the support of a company totally focused on providing enterprise services for financial institutions. "No other vendor offered the breadth and depth of service - from wire transfers, ACH and tiered security. S1 is giving us the competitive edge we needed to play in the same ballpark with the big guys," said John Ruzicka, president of Interbank 1, the information technology subsidiary of Peoples, Inc. "We're confident that we've chosen a partner that will help us further expand our business."

Wells Fargo's offering of the S1 Trade Finance product is filling market demand for a worldwide solution to automate trade activity. "S1 Trade Finance allowed us to get to market quickly with a comprehensive letter of credit management platform that is helping us to strengthen our customer relationships and increase our market share and revenue generation with net new customers," said Jeff Gordon, vice president, International Product Management at Wells Fargo.

For years, FleetBoston Financial has relied on several of S1's cash management solutions to support the complex needs of its wide range of small to high-end customers worldwide. In fact, the company currently uses S1 Corporate Banking for its high-end customers and is in the early stages of implementing the S1 Business Banking solution on the S1 Enterprise Platform. "One of the best things about the Enterprise Platform is that it gives us the ability to develop our solution on one platform, not 11 different systems that in the past, have required us to spread our resources too thin," said John Mutschler, director of Emerging Technologies at FleetBoston. In addition, the Bank's global trade services group has moved to the Web-enabled version of S1 Trade Finance, enabling them to cut the resources needed to support their trade customers by more than 30 percent, according to Sue Clark, senior vice president of Global Trade Product Management at FleetBoston.

Mercantile Bank, a $1 billion asset bank, is currently using S1's IBS Cash Management product to meet the demanding needs of the full range of wholesale clients it serves, from small businesses to larger, more complex corporate accounts. In addition, the bank has been able to demonstrate a full return on its online banking investments, something that many institutions are still struggling to do. "Between cash management and our new funds manager fees, we were able to cover all of our Internet banking costs within the first two years of implementation," said John Schulte, vice president operations at Mercantile Bank.

According to Octavio Marenzi, managing director of Celent Communications, "S1 has certainly proven itself to be a strong, established player that offers extensive cash management services through it diversified product portfolio. Additionally, the Company's successes are bolstered by long-term partnerships with large banks and technology providers."

PNC Bank has been using S1 Business Banking for more than three years. According to Rico Iacchetti, business banking e-commerce product line manager at PNC Bank, "S1 Business Banking is a great solution that provides us with the functionality we need to build customer loyalty and generate new business in this extremely competitive marketplace."

S1's Business Solutions include:

-- S1 Business Banking provides competitive, cash management

tools, as well as two-way OFX and account aggregation for SOHO 

to middle market business customers.

-- S1 Corporate Banking delivers sophisticated multi-lingual,

multi-currency functionality, extensive reporting features,

and a powerful payments engine for high-volume corporate

customers.

-- S1 Trade Finance streamlines international trade finance

operations from purchase order, and letter of credit, to

direct collections in one, integrated system.

-- S1 IBS Cash Management provides competitive functionality in a

packaged, affordable Internet cash management solution for

smaller financial institutions.

"The market momentum and the real, tangible value that our customers are receiving are strong validation that S1 is delivering the most advanced cash management solutions to financial institutions around the world," said Jaime Ellertson, CEO of S1 Corporation. "We're firmly committed to providing our customers with an ever-expanding, feature-rich set of solutions to help them tap into the unrivaled growth opportunities in the wholesale banking marketplace."

About S1 Corporation

S1 Corporation (Nasdaq: SONE) is a leading global provider of enterprise software solutions for more than 4,000 banks, credit unions and insurance providers around the world. Comprised of applications that address virtually every market segment and delivery channel, S1 solutions help integrate and optimize an institution's entire front office, resulting in increased operational efficiencies, revenue opportunities and overall customer satisfaction. S1 is the only provider with the proven experience, breadth of products and financial strength to empower financial services companies' enterprise strategies. Additional information about S1 is available at www.s1.com.

Forward-Looking Statements 

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. These statements include statements with respect to our financial condition, results of operations and business. The words "believes," "expects," "may," "will," "should," "projects," "contemplates," "anticipates," "forecasts," "intends" or similar terminology identify forward-looking statements. These statements are based on our beliefs as well as assumptions made using information currently available to us. Because these statements reflect our current views concerning future events, they involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions. Therefore, actual results may differ significantly from the results discussed in the forward-looking statements. The risk factors included in our reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (and available on our web site at www.s1.com or the SEC's web site at www.sec.gov) provide examples of risks, uncertainties and events that may cause our actual results to differ materially from the expectations we describe in our forward-looking statements. Except as provided by law, we undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statement.