CWB Appoints Chief Executive Officer.

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--December 9, 1999--

CWB Systems Services, the leading financial services IT and business consultancy, announced today the appointment of Hugh Hughes as Chief Executive Officer, reporting to Chairman Christiane Wuillamie, effective January 1, 2000.

Mr. Hughes joins CWB from Societe Generale, where he was Chief Executive of the Equities Division. Since 1998 he has been a Non-Executive Director of CWB. Previously, Hughes held appointments at Paribas Capital Markets, where he had overall responsibility for equities, and Swiss Bank Corporation, where he was a member of the executive committee and was responsible for trading and risk management. As chairman of Savory Milln, he negotiated the sale of the company to SBCI. Hughes is a member of the Securities Exchange and the Guild of Freeman in London.

"Hugh is an outstanding banking professional with proven leadership abilities and a strong reputation for building highly successful businesses," said Ms. Wuillamie. "He brings to CWB over 30 years of international experience in investment banking and asset management, and will provide us with invaluable business-side experience of the financial markets."

"I have known Hugh for over 15 years. His considerable skills and experience combined with his thorough knowledge of CWB's business and culture will make him immediately effective as CEO," said Ms. Wuillamie, who since founding CWB in 1994 has acted as both chairman and CEO.

"CWB's rapid maturation in the United Kingdom and its present high growth rate in the United States make this appointment essential," she said. "The Board of Directors and I are delighted to have Hugh join us."

"I am a builder of businesses," said Mr. Hughes. "Much of my professional experience is in growing small companies into larger ones. CWB is a strong company with excellent, skilled people and a solid strategy for growth. My challenge is to build on the company's considerable achievements and develop the products and services that will take us to the next level.

"Post Y2K, we expect a very strong upturn in business, and we are already positioning ourselves to exploit these opportunities. Our core capabilities in IT and business process consulting, risk management, and managed service provision will all be in high demand," said Mr. Hughes.

Ms. Wuillamie said CWB's strategy will remain unchanged. "We will remain focused on the financial services industry, although we will broaden our market reach to include buy- and sell-side organizations, as well as non-traditional financial service providers. CWB is rapidly becoming a leading global company delivering business and IT solutions involving people, process and technology."

NOTES TO EDITORS:

CWB, based in London and New York, is a privately owned company with over 200 employees and revenues for the last financial year ending March 1999 of $30 million. Founded in 1994 by Christiane Wuillamie, CWB is recognized as a pioneer of IT within the financial markets, by successfully providing a bridge between technology providers (whether internal IT departments or external suppliers) and business managers. CWB has grown nearly 100 percent year to year and is structured around four principal service offerings:

-- Consultancy Services which focuses on delivering complex

technology solutions

-- Software Solutions which provides customizable global credit risk

solutions

-- Managed Services which includes both service management and

applications Support

-- Trading and Documentation, providing specialized services for the

financial service marketplace

In the 1999 Management Consultancy league tables, CWB was number 38 in the "Top consulting firms" in fee income, and number 24 in the "Top consultants to the financial sector." CWB was a 1999 finalist in the CBI growing business awards and the Virgin Fast Track Awards.

Clients include such major investment banks such as Credit Suisse Group, Deutsche Bank, Dresdner Kleinwort Benson, HSBC, Merrill Lynch, Nikko, Barclays Capital, Citibank, JP Morgan, ING Barings, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, Salomon Brothers, and SBC Warburg Dillon Read.