Florida Banks, Inc. Converts To Y2K-Ready System.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 23, 1998--Florida Banks, Inc. (Nasdaq:FLBK) announced today that its data processor has successfully completed the conversion of Florida Banks' systems to a Year 2000-ready platform. The announcement was made by Charles E. Hughes, Jr., President and Chief Executive Officer of the Jacksonville-based bank holding company during the company's board meeting.

"This conversion represents a critical accomplishment for Florida Banks as it protects our customers' relationships and puts our bank ahead of other financial institutions in addressing a critical technical issue," said Hughes. "With our rapid expansion plans, we realized that addressing this situation early on would be advantageous to our business."

Florida Banks has worked closely with its data processing provider, Milwaukee-based M&I Data Services for more than a year to ensure its systems are Year 2000-ready.

The Year 2000 problem results from the inability of many computer programs to accurately process dates of January 1, 2000 and beyond. In the early days of computer programming, it was vital to conserve disk space, keystrokes and cost. As a result, companies adopted a strategy to store dates as six digits instead of eight digits. They accomplished this by only storing the last two digits of the year. For example, June 15, 1993 would be stored as 061593. The programs were then designed to assume that "93" represented "1993." Left unchanged, this inability to accurately distinguish between the year 2000 and the year 1900 will throw off dates in millions of data files, for millions of computer systems.

Prior to the actual conversion, both Florida Banks and M&I Data Services conducted comprehensive awareness, assessment, renovation and testing phases as part of their respective Year 2000 projects. Each of these phases helped both organizations ensure that they understood the scope of the Year 2000's impact on their day-to-day business.

"M&I provided tremendous technical expertise to Florida Banks in addressing this challenge," said T. Edwin Stinson, Jr., Chief Financial Officer of Florida Banks. "They worked closely with out team to know as much as possible about our business so that solutions developed would help our bank achieve its goals and enhance our customers relationships."

In August 1998, M&I Data Services' Year 2000 Outsourcing Solution was certified by the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA). ITTA 2000 is the industry's century date change certification program, which examines processes and methods used by companies to perform their Year 2000 software conversions.

M&I Data Services is a provider of leading-edge technology solutions to the banking industry. A division of Marshall & Ilsley Corporation, it offers consulting, software and processing solutions for financial institutions worldwide.

Florida Banks, Inc. is creating a statewide community banking system focusing on Florida's largest and fastest-growing markets. Its community banking approach emphasizes responsive and personalized service to its customers at a level normally reserved for only the very best customers of very large banks. Florida Banks offers a range of traditional banking products and services to small and medium-sized businesses and professionals such as physicians and attorneys, service companies, manufacturing companies and other commercial enterprises. It also provides personal banking services for the owners and executives of those businesses. Florida Banks has community banking offices in Tampa and Jacksonville and intends to open a new office in the Gainesville market in the near future.