Blaze Software Drives the United Kingdom's First Fully Interactive Online Bank.

Business & High-Tech Editors

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 7, 2000

cahoot, the new interactive bank from Abbey National, is launched

to provide personalized Internet banking service, driven by Blaze

Advisor(TM)

Blaze Software (Nasdaq:BLZE), a leading supplier of "Beyond Personalization(TM)" e-business solutions, today announced that cahoot (www.cahoot.com), the new separately branded division of Abbey National plc, has selected the Blaze Advisor Solutions Suite(TM) to power its customized banking service. Blaze Advisor's rules-based technology is driving distinctive personalization features that position cahoot as the United Kingdom's first fully interactive bank that is not only available via the Internet, but by phone and ATM as well, with digital television and WAP mobile phone services planned for later in the year.

"cahoot reflects our cutting-edge offerings and commitment to provide leading financial services to our customers," said Tim Sawyer, business development and marketing director for cahoot. "Our partnership with Blaze Software enables us to provide a truly interactive experience and personalized service to our customers. We selected Blaze Advisor for its proven track-record in Web-based personalization and customer relationship management solutions, especially in the financial services industry."

The 100% Java Blaze Advisor Solutions Suite is an integrated family of products designed to capture the business policies, practices, and procedures--or business rules--that drive day-to-day business activity. Blaze Software's business rule technology allows enterprise business systems or software vendors to use information such as customer profiles and preferences, online interactions, and company policies to make real-time decisions, drive content display, and define interactive behavior. Blaze Advisor can be used with Web-based e-business systems, call center automation, voice response systems, kiosk-based applications, and other communication channels.

cahoot uses Blaze Advisor's business rules technology to transform e-business interactions from static, generic Web screens to dynamic, fully interactive and highly personalized recommendations. Based on cahoot's best business and customer service practices, they can ensure that customers are being offered the product or service most suited to them.

"Blaze Advisor's `Beyond Personalization' features enable cahoot to reflect their personality online, adapt quickly to their customers' needs and provide interactive recommendations," said Steve Kelly, U.K. country manager for Blaze Software. "With the adoption of Blaze Advisor, Abbey National is establishing an online standard for convenient and personalized banking service that customers typically have associated with visits to a local bank representative.

By integrating the Blaze Advisor Solutions Suite in their applications, customers can realize Blaze Software's four fundamental principles for going Beyond Personalization in e-business:

- True one-to-one interactions are based on the needs and

preferences of each user while providing the opportunity for

maximum returns to the enterprise. Examples are interactive

dialogs and personalized recommendations based on a user's

goals.

- Business process personalization incorporates a company's way

of doing business and treating its customers in every aspect

of business operations. Automated policies, practices, and

procedures allow the company's personality to shine through in

every transaction.

- Enterprise consistency means maintaining the same business

methodologies no matter how, when, or where customers,

employees, suppliers or partners interact with the enterprise.

- Adaptive personality responds in real time to changing

competition, internal business practices, government

regulations, and customer behaviors to provide the most

appropriate and effective treatment of each customer

transaction.

Blaze Software recently released version 3.0 of the Blaze Advisor Solutions Suite, introducing a richer development environment, faster performance, lower memory use, and the scalability to drive massive-scale B2B and B2C applications.

cahoot's use of Blaze Advisor strengthens Blaze Software's global position as a leading provider of personalization solutions to the financial services industry with customers such as Prudential, New York Life and First Franklin in the United States; Deutsche Bank in Germany; and BNP in France. Recently, Blaze Software opened two new offices in Sydney and Melbourne, Australia to satisfy a similar demand among financial services organizations in the Asia-Pacific region.

About Blaze Software

Blaze Software, Inc. is a leading provider of rules-based e-business software enabling adaptable and consistent personalized interaction across all contact points. The Blaze Advisor Solutions Suite, written entirely in the Java programming language, is designed to give e-business applications more personalized interaction for users, which can lead to greater customer retention, decreased costs, and increased sales. Blazed applications can be changed on the fly, allowing e-business offerings to respond to changing market conditions, business practices, and customer preferences. Blaze Software personalization solutions are constructed to be extended easily across contact points (Web, IVR, call centers) and across processes (customer, employee, partner and supplier).

Blaze Software powers e-business projects for more than 200 customers in the high technology, financial, insurance, manufacturing, telecommunications, and healthcare industries, and Blaze Software products are embedded in leading e-business software packages. Blaze Software offers complete support for implementations across extended enterprises and within software applications, including training, consulting, and integration services. Blaze Software is headquartered in San Jose, California, and maintains a global network of subsidiaries and resellers in North and South America, Europe, Australia, and Asia. For more information, visit www.blazesoft.com.

About cahoot

cahoot is a 24-hour multiple channel bank designed with the customer in mind. Open 365 days a year, it offers innovative services at competitive prices to a new customer base. It is a division of Abbey National plc, the UK's fourth largest bank. For more information, please visit the site at www.cahoot.com.

Blaze Software, Blaze Advisor, Blaze Advisor Solutions Suite, and Beyond Personalization are trademarks of Blaze Software, Inc. Java is a trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc. All other names are trademarks of their respective companies.