Chase and Intelisys to Launch Online Purchasing Community for Small to Mid-Sized Businesses; First Phase of Chase Business-to-Business Electronic Marketplace.

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 21, 1999--

The Chase Manhattan Bank, lead subsidiary of The Chase Manhattan Corporation (NYSE:CMB), announced today that it will launch an online business-to-business purchasing community with Intelisys Electronic Commerce, a global leader in electronic procurement.

This new offering brings together the payments, e-commerce and purchasing expertise of Chase and Intelisys to provide The Chase Manhattan Bank's 350,000 business customers with the tools to Internet enable their businesses and to buy and sell goods and services over the Internet to other members of the Chase purchasing community. This effort is the first phase of a major initiative to provide companies with a Chase hosted electronic business-to-business Internet marketplace.

This initiative is co-sponsored by Chase.com, The Chase Manhattan Corporation unit responsible for overseeing key Internet initiatives and developing joint ventures with Internet companies, and Small Business Financial Services, the Chase unit that serves the needs of small businesses.

"Small and mid-sized companies have always been important to Chase," said Ray Fattell, senior vice president for business-to-business e-commerce with Chase.com. "As these businesses connect to the Internet, we can offer both new and existing Chase customers a full array of value added services. Online procurement is an important foundation for our full service business-to-business portal, and we plan to continually expand our service offerings to this dynamic and growing market."

Chase will use Intelisys' IEC-Portal, a business-to-business e-commerce portal service, to offer features that support businesses as both buyers and sellers.

The purchasing community offers catalog set-up tools and transaction processing services to sellers who are new to the Internet. Businesses that have already created online catalogs can also easily link to this service. Unlike other approaches to electronic purchasing, Intelisys does not require suppliers to re-create their catalogs in a proprietary format. This results in a significantly easier implementation for suppliers and a much wider choice of suppliers for buyers.

The Chase purchasing community will support suppliers of all sizes, ranging from large global suppliers, like Boise Cascade Office Products, to small- and mid-sized Chase business customers.

David Goudge, Vice President of Marketing for Boise Cascade Office Products, a preferred supplier to Chase, commented, "Boise Cascade Office Products has been very successful in its e-commerce efforts. We plan to leverage our expertise and success by working with companies, like Chase and Intelisys, that are at the forefront of Internet activities."

As a buyer, a business will realize significant benefits, including discount pricing from community-based purchasing power; online access to supplier information and prices, including the ability to comparison shop among suppliers; control over employee spending limits; electronic routing of orders for approval; and automated reports on purchasing activity.

"Intelisys' portal solution will help Chase deepen ties to its customer base by providing them purchasing benefits previously available only to Fortune 1000 companies," said Lloyd O'Connor, CEO of Intelisys. "The Chase purchasing community will allow business customers, as suppliers, to expand their business and, as buyers, to more cost effectively purchase goods and services."

Chase and Intelisys are testing the purchasing software and plan to introduce the service by year-end. The broader business portal that Chase is developing will provide an array of services, including payments, logistics, digital certificates, auctions, and credit reporting. Chase plans to partner with leading Internet companies to offer those services to both general business and more specialized vertical marketplaces.

Headquartered in New York City, and affiliated with The Chase Manhattan Bank, Intelisys Electronic Commerce, LLC is a leading provider of Internet-based business-to-business purchasing solutions for companies of all sizes. Intelisys enables communities of buying and supplying organizations to conduct business-to-business commerce, helping all participants leverage the benefits of Internet-based purchasing. Intelisys clients who are using award-winning IEC-Enterprise software or sponsoring an Intelisys-powered IEC-Portal represent a host of world-class organizations, including The Ford Motor Company (NYSE:F), Telstra (ASX: TLS), The Chase Manhattan Bank (NYSE: CMB), Western Geophysical and the first multi-state purchasing consortium, Emall. Intelisys can be reached on the web at www.intelisys.com.

The Chase Manhattan Corporation, with more than $357 billion in assets, is one of the world's premier financial services institutions, with operations in 48 countries around the globe. Chase has a top-tier ranking in all areas of investment banking, private banking, trading and global markets activities as well as information and transaction processing. Chase is a leading provider of financial solutions to large corporations, financial institutions, government entities, middle market firms, small businesses and individuals, and has relationships with more than 30 million consumers across the United States. Through its newly formed business unit, Chase.com, Chase is successfully creating new business models for the Internet economy. Chase can be reached on the web at www.chase.com.