ELECTRONIC PAYMENT NETWORK DEBUTS WEB-BASED SOLUTION.

The Electronic Payments Network (EPN), has launched the industry's first centralized OFAC screening solution for financial institutions originating and receiving cross-border ACH transactions.

EPN's Centralized OFAC Screening Service is a web-based solution that requires no custom software installation or individual maintenance. It provides financial institutions with an easy solution to fulfill their compliance requirements for cross-border ACH transactions under regulations issued by the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). OFAC Screening is available to all financial institutions in the United States.

"EPN's OFAC Screening provides a cost-effective solution for financial institutions of all sizes to manage their cross-border ACH traffic," said Rossana Salaris, senior vice president of The Clearing House, responsible for EPN.

EPN's OFAC solution is part of EPNWATCH, a suite of risk- management services from EPN that includes fraud detection, employee fingerprinting, credit and debit controls, and the Universal Payment Identification Code (UPIC).

Built in partnership with Accuity (formerly TFP, Thomson Financial Publishing), EPN's OFAC solution screens cross-border corporate and retail ACH payments against a centralized OFAC list and identifies suspect transactions. The centralized architecture of EPN's OFAC solution allows institutions to avoid the expense of building and maintaining their own OFAC screening infrastructure and tools.

"If a financial institution does not block and report a cross-border ACH transfer and another financial institution does, then it may face civil or even criminal penalties," Salaris said.

How EPN's OFAC Screening Works

Origination

Originated cross-border transactions are sent to EPN in files, which can include NACHA Corporate Cross-Border Payments (CBR) and Consumer Cross-Border Payments (PBR), SWIFT MT103 messages and proprietary cross-border formats. EPN screens the submitted transactions in real-time against the OFAC list, which contains the names of individuals, countries, companies, vessels and other entities that are identified on the Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list. A report of suspect items is generated. An e-mail directs the financial institution to a secure web interface to view and resolve each suspect transaction. Accounts identified as false positives can be added to the financial institution's database to reduce future false positives.

Receipt

EPN screens all CBR and PBR items it receives from FedACH against the OFAC list. A report is generated for the receiving institution to warn them of suspect transactions. The e-mail notification directs the institution to a secure web interface to view and resolve each suspect transaction. Accounts identified as false positives can be added to the financial institution's database to reduce future false positives.

For more information about EPN's Centralized OFAC Screening Service, visit http://www.epaynetwork.com or call 201/319-5522.

About EPN and The Clearing House Payments Company

The Electronic Payments Network, a payments business of The Clearing House Payments Company, is the only national private- sector ACH operator in the United States. Its membership consists of more than 1,600 commercial banks, credit unions and savings banks. EPN processed more than 3.4 billion payments in 2004. The Clearing House (http://www.theclearinghouse.org) is a private-sector, global payment systems infrastructure that clears and settles more than 20 million payments for $ 1.5 trillion per day. The Clearing House manages payment services that span the entire spectrum of paper, paper-to-electronic and electronic payments.

Electronic Payments Network can be found on the World Wide Web at http://www.epaynetwork.com.

About Accuity

Accuity (formerly TFP, Thomson Financial Publishing), a SourceMedia Company, provides insightful data, software and services that enable global organizations to maximize efficiency and facilitate compliance of their transactions.

Accuity can be found on the World Wide Web at http://www.AccuitySolutions.com.

For more information, call 212/613-9896.