ECHO Check Verification Ranks 6th in Nation.

Business Editors & High-Tech Writers

AGOURA HILLS, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 7, 2000

Electronic Clearing House Inc. (Nasdaq:ECHO) announced that it was ranked as the 6th largest check verification company in the nation in 1999 by The Nilson Report in its May 2000 issue. ECHO reported more than 250 million checks processed in 1999 with a total dollar volume in excess of $10 billion.

According to The Nilson Report (nilsonreport.com), Oxnard, Calif., last year more than 9.21 billion personal and business checks were handled by check guarantee and/or check verification companies for merchants across the nation. The number of checks verified increased by 24.8% and their dollar value increased by 26.4%.

The electronic approval process for check verification is done by feeding a check through an electronic reader terminal that identifies the customer's account number and bank identification number or can be done by swiping a driver's license through a terminal that reads the personal information encoded on a magnetic stripe.

The decision to approve or decline a check is based on: 1) negative files of deposit accounts that have been closed or contain negative information; 2) positive files of checkwriters with no adverse information; 3) data from collection agencies; 4) records of dollar volume and quantity and amount of recently written checks; 5) driver's license data cross-referenced with other accounts; 6) computer models that predict fraud from prior behavior patterns; and 7) inconsistencies in the MICR numbers that are used for bank transit and routing.

"ECHO provided check services for many years, focusing its services only in California," stated Joel M. Barry, CEO of ECHO. "ECHO's acquisition of Rocky Mountain Retail Systems Inc. (RMRS) in January 2000, and its April 1999 acquisition of Magic Software Development Inc., whose name was changed to XPRESSCHEX in May 2000, definitely changed the scope of ECHO's check services to a national level and provided the volume to be one of the leaders in the check processing market today."

"Looking at the five check processors who were identified with more volume than ECHO in The Nilson Report, I feel confident that the RMRS database, combined with the back-end processing and online reporting features of the XPRESSCHEX system, make ECHO a better value proposition for any merchant," stated Barry.

Electronic Clearing House Inc. provides credit card processing, cash advance services, check guarantee, check verification, check conversion, inventory tracking and/or various Internet services to more than 41,000 retail merchants, U-Haul dealers and casinos across the nation. ECHO also designs, develops and integrates software and point-of-sale hardware that is utilized as credit card processing terminals, automated money order dispensers, inventory tracking devices and casino cash advance systems.

To take advantage of the "safe harbor" provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, readers are hereby cautioned that this release contains forward-looking statements that are based upon current expectations and involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Actual operations and results may differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements made by the company.