Carreker Announces Customized Check 21 Readiness Program.

Business Editors

DALLAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 4, 2003

Client-Customized Workshop Identifies Opportunities and Risks;

Follow-Up Service Delivers Individual Bank Plan and Rapid Execution

Carreker Corporation (Nasdaq:CANI), a leading provider of consulting and technology solutions for the financial services industry, today announced a comprehensive Check 21 Readiness Program for financial institutions and payment processors, complementing the company's technology roadmap for Check 21.

Check 21 (also known as the Check Truncation Act of 2003) facilitates the exchange of images instead of paper checks by permitting banks to truncate checks and substitute image replacement documents. It will drive considerable change as banks adapt their processes, platforms, and technology to accommodate an increasingly imaged-based environment.

Carreker's Check 21 Readiness Program, already under way with selected banks, is designed to help clients realize their Check 21-related opportunities and minimize the risks. It is launched with a two-day, bank-customized, on-site Check 21 Readiness Workshop, with specialized modules for operations, products, customer service, risk management, and lines of business.

In the workshop, clients come to a swift understanding of their readiness and can identify their areas of greatest risk, competitive opportunity, and operational needs. The workshop leads to a business-case-based strategic plan for Check-21-related initiatives, and the program culminates in the execution of the plan in good time for Check 21.

A key feature of the program is rapid execution. Said Carolyn Coughlin, senior vice president, North American Item Processing, Harris Bank, "There's no doubt that Check 21 is going to improve the way we do some very important functions. Still, we wanted to use this opportunity to make additional changes that will serve our payments customers well into the future. Being able to do that quickly and in a cost-effective manner is very important to us."

The Program is a service of Carreker's recently organized Global Payments Consulting (GPC) division and is being delivered by the company's top consultants in operations, technology, image processing, and fraud mitigation. Said Nancy Langer, president of GPC, "I'm not aware of any greater value we could conceivably bring our clients in the next few months than this Program. Whether they are thoroughly aware of Check 21's urgent and vast implications, or sometimes mistakenly complacent about their readiness, we are finding high value for our ability to help them plan and budget for bankwide requirements."

Added Langer, "After our first workshop, our clients said, 'Now we feel ready to mount a concerted response with an informed budget. Before, we were looking at a disaggregate set of uncertainties.' Unlike other industry events organized around this topic, ours is bank-customized, so it reaches deeply into the areas where Check 21 will play out either favorably or unfavorably for the client: product groups and business lines."

Check 21 has passed the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate in different versions; passage of a combined version is expected in the coming months, with the law expected to take effect in 2004. Banking leaders consider the legislation to be among the most significant since the Monetary Control Act of 1980, and to portend more change for payment operations than the introduction of MICR (magnetic image character recognition) encoding on checks.

J.D. (Denny) Carreker, chairman and CEO of Carreker Corporation, said, "Check 21 affects every financial institution in the country -- banks large and small, credit unions, brokerages, processors, and so on. It offers profound opportunity for banks that adapt quickly, and significant risk for others. That is why we are also pleased to provide our clients with strategic and tactical advisory services in the form of this Check 21 Readiness Program, in addition to our integrated suite of image processing technology that Check 21 will entail."

Carreker's GPC division consists of three consulting practices: Payments Strategy and Modeling, Image Technology and Operations Planning (offering the Check 21 Readiness Program), and Fraud Risk and Mitigation.

Carreker Corporation has the leading footprint in the image processing technology space that is being reinforced by Check 21: Approximately 60 percent of check images archived today by the top 50 banks in North America are stored by Carreker applications, either at individual banks or in shared archives. The company offers the only image-enabled back office suite (for exceptions, adjustments, and return items, with a research offering in the works) and a number of image-enabled fraud mitigation applications, recently announced the first application in its image quality assurance suite, and is creating an image exchange system compatible with its electronic check presentment solution, CheckLink(R).

For more information about Carreker's Check 21 Readiness Program, go to http://www.carreker.com/Check-21.html or contact Steve Hill, Managing Principal, Carreker Corporation, at 508-485-2283, [e-mail].

About Carreker Corporation

Carreker Corporation improves earnings for financial institutions around the world. The company's integrated consulting and software solutions are designed to increase clients' revenues and reduce their expenses, while improving security and increasing the value of their customer relationships. Carreker provides products and services to more than 250 clients in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and South Africa. Clients include the full range of community, regional and large banks, among them more than 75 of the largest 100 banks in the United States. Headquartered in Dallas, since 1978, Carreker Corporation also has offices located around the world including London and Sydney. For more information, visit www.carreker.com.