Chip-Based Visa Card Payment Acceptance Moves to the Checkout Counter in the U.S.; Visa USA and Partners Make Physical POS Smart Card Payment Acceptance a Reality with a Chip Enabled Terminal.

Business Editors/Hi-Tech Writers

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 20, 2001

smart Visa card functionality took a significant step forward today as leading payment industry players unveiled their readiness for chip card payments at the physical point of sale (POS).

This signals continued momentum in building the acceptance infrastructure for accepting and processing smart card based consumer credit and debit transactions.

Today for the first time in the U.S., a POS merchant location will begin accepting and processing Europay, MasterCard, Visa (EMV) compliant consumer "credit" payment transactions by reading the microprocessor chip embedded inside smart Visa cards.

Vital Processing Services(TM) (Vital(R)) and National Processing Company (NYSE:NAP) (NPC) are the payment processors behind this new smart card acceptance solution. As part of its commitment to chip-card processing, NPC, in collaboration with Vital, will begin accepting chip-read payment transactions in NPC's employee cafeteria in Louisville, KY.

This program delivers on the promise Visa and several partners made in May 2001 that the physical POS environment would soon be ready to support cardholders making purchases using a smart card.

Mark Pyke, Executive Vice-President, NPC, made the inaugural purchase transaction today using his Providian Financial (NYSE:PVN) (www.providian.com) smart Visa Card. With this announcement, NPC employees will become the first consumers to make true chip card payments using their smart Visa cards at the physical POS.

Both Vital and NPC develop terminal applications for accepting smart cards at the POS, and their move to enable chip-read payment transactions (rather than magnetic stripe read transactions) at the physical POS is a giant leap forward for the growing smart card industry.

NPC will run Hypercom Corporation's (NYSE:HYC) touch screen-based ICE card payment terminals in its cafeteria and Vital will provide the POS authorization services during smart Visa transactions that transpire at the terminals.

"Visa and its partners are energizing the payments industry by enabling the move from 'swipe the stripe' smart card payments to 'dip the chip' transactions," said Liz Farnsworth, vice president, Smart Card Applications, Visa U.S.A. "Offering a complete POS smart card payment solution is a critical step in making smart Visa's vision a reality, and we're excited about the key role Vital and NPC have played in developing this latest industry advancement."

Visa, along with technology, financial services, and industry partners, has been working to streamline the steps that merchants and their technology vendors need to take to accept smart cards at their locations.

Today's announcement is the latest of several significant smart card milestones: Visa has been working with leading POS device suppliers and payment processors to supply the infrastructure that merchants need to accept smart card payments. Visa also launched its "smart Visa Ready" program, outlining an approval process for technology providers that offer smart card products and services.

As a result of these efforts and others, Visa anticipates that smart card acceptance and usage will significantly increase in the U.S.

"Chip cards are becoming a reality and Vital is proud to be the first merchant processor fully able to support smart Visa chip cards at the physical POS," said Jonathan Palmer, president and CEO of Vital Processing Services. "As a technology leader, Vital will be working closely with Visa to develop additional terminal application solutions for smart Visa that will further enhance customer loyalty at the POS."

"NPC is proud to deliver on the promise of smart Visa by declaring our own merchants and employees 'point-of-sale smart card pioneers,'" said Thomas A. Wimsett, president and Chief Executive Officer, National Processing Company (NPC). "While our facility may be the first to offer consumers a chip-reading smart card terminal for payment, it certainly won't be the last. We look forward to helping Visa and its partners make smart cards a part of our everyday lives."

Visa works on behalf of its Member financial institutions, merchants and consumers to continually deliver better ways to pay. smart Visa, for example, allows consumers to access Web-delivered applications, online payments security and shopping enhancements such as loyalty points, as well as information storage capabilities.

Visa's vision is that smart cards will continue to add new levels of convenience to consumers' everyday lives by, for example, functioning as electronic keys for a home, office or car, or offering payments services through a mobile phone, PC or personal digital assistant (PDA).

Today's announcement with Vital and NPC is a landmark achievement for the Visa smart card platform, signaling the dawn of mainstream, POS chip-enabled payment.

About smart Visa

Visa U.S.A. launched its smart Visa smart card product platform in September 2000, enabling financial institutions to combine the purchasing power of traditional payment cards with smart chip technology.

The introduction of smart Visa is part of a broad strategy designed to provide Visa issuing banks with both a brand and technology platform to significantly increase marketing success while reducing time and cost to market. The technology platform provides Visa issuers with a number of pre-packaged applications that can be readily adapted to fit individual issuer strategies for smart cards.

With this platform, consumers can access Web-delivered applications, online payments security and shopping enhancements, as well as download applications to their cards via their PCs.

Since smart Visa cards use the Open Platform, Visa will be able to further collaborate with developers and Member financial institutions to offer innovative services that will work not only in the physical world and online, but also with mobile devices.

With more than 80 smart card programs in 35-plus countries and on the Internet, Visa has issued more than 42 million smart cards worldwide and expects to issue 7 million in the U.S. by the end of 2001.

About Visa U.S.A.

Visa is the world's leading payment brand and largest consumer payment system, enabling banks to provide their consumer and merchant customers with the best way to pay and be paid.

More than 14,000 U.S. financial institutions rely on Visa's processing system, VisaNet, to facilitate over $810 billion in annual transaction volume - including more than half of all Internet payments - with virtually 100 percent reliability.

U.S. consumers carry more than 353 million Visa-branded smart, credit, commercial, stored value and check cards, accepted at approximately 22 million locations worldwide. Visa has long led the industry in developing payment security standards, and has been named the most trusted payment brand online.

Visa's people, partnerships, brand and payment technology are helping to create universal commerce - the ability to safely conduct transactions anytime, anywhere and by any device. Please visit www.visa.com for additional information.

About National Processing, Inc.

National Processing, Inc., through its wholly owned operating subsidiary, National Processing Company (NPC(R)), is a leading provider of merchant credit card processing. National Processing is 87 percent owned by National City Corporation (NYSE:NCC) (www.nationalcity.com), a Cleveland based $91 billion financial holding company.

NPC supports over 550,000 merchant locations, representing nearly one out of every five Visa and MasterCard transactions processed nationally. NPC's card processing solutions offer superior levels of service and performance and assist merchants in lowering their total cost of card acceptance through our world-class people, technology and service.

Additional information regarding National Processing can be obtained at www.npc.net.

About Vital Processing Services

Arizona-based Vital Processing Services(R) (Vital(R)) is a leader in technology-based commerce enabling services. Vital's clients include acquirers and merchant service providers that offer electronic payment processing services to merchants.

Vital provides leading point-of-sale (POS) products and services, electronic authorization and data capture; VirtualNet(TM) Internet-commerce services; clearing, settlement and exception processing; accounting, billing and reporting; risk management; and customer service. Vital is a merchant processing joint venture of Visa U.S.A. and TSYS (NYSE:TSS).

Additional information regarding Vital can be found at www.vitalps.com.

About Providian Financial

Winner of the 2001 Rochester Institute of Technology/USA Today Quality Cup for excellence in customer service, San Francisco-based Providian Financial is a leading provider of lending and deposit products to customers throughout the U.S., and offers credit cards and deposit products in the UK and in Argentina.

Providian Financial has been named one of America's Most Admired Companies in a survey by Fortune magazine, one of the nation's top financial institutions by U.S. Banker magazine, and one of the most technologically innovative companies in the U.S. by InformationWeek magazine. The Company has more than $33 billion in assets under management and over 17 million customer accounts.

About Hypercom Corporation

Hypercom Corporation (NYSE:HYC) is the leading global provider of electronic payment solutions that add value at the point-of-sale for consumers, merchants and acquirers, and yield increased profitability for its customers.

Hypercom's products include secure web-enabled transaction terminals that work seamlessly with its networking equipment and software applications for e-commerce, m-commerce, smart cards and traditional payment applications.

The company's widely-accepted ePOS-infocommerce(TM) (epic) framework of consumer-activated, EMV-certified, touch-screen ICE (Interactive Consumer Environment) terminals enable acquirers and merchants to decrease costs, increase revenues and improve customer retention.

Headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona, Hypercom is independently acknowledged as the leading provider of point-of-sale card payment terminals worldwide. Demand for Hypercom's terminals surpassed one million units last year alone. Hypercom today maintains an installed base of more than 4 million terminals in over 100 countries, which conduct over 10 billion transactions annually.

Hypercom's Internet address is: www.hypercom.com.