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February 17, 2003

LEVEL FOUR ANNOUNCES SUPPORT FOR THE LATEST EMV-CERTIFIED SOFTWARE FROM LEADING ATM SUPPLIERS.

Six UK banks using Level Four software for EMV conversion

London, 17 February 2003 - Level Four Software, a leading provider of ATM test and development software today announced that its EMV FastTrack product now supports the latest EMV-certified software from leading manufacturers including NCR, Diebold and Wincor-Nixdorf. Banks upgrading their ATMs with newly released EMV-certified software can work with Level Four to rapidly conduct full end-to-end testing across their ATM networks. Level Four is responding to the certification recently granted by EMVCo to several major European ATM manufacturers.

EMVCo, formed by Europay, MasterCard and Visa to manage, maintain and enhance EMV card specifications for payment systems, has a specific set of requirements that ATM manufacturers are required to meet, in preparation for the EMV compliance deadline of 2005. This will ensure that banks' ATM networks can fully support the extended functionality available through the introduction of EMV chip cards.

Upgrading ATM functionality to EMV has previously been difficult because there were no adequate tools available. With Level Four's technology a bank can graphically develop EMV transaction workflow and conduct sophisticated end-to-end simulation of EMV transactions for thorough testing before deployment. Six of the UK's leading banks are already using software from Level Four to test their ATM networks and enhance functionality to support the introduction of EMV smart cards. Existing customers include LloydsTSB and Abbey National.

"We predict that the recent EMV-certification of the leading ATM suppliers will spur many banks to begin their EMV compliance projects. To date many have adopted a 'wait and see' attitude until initial pilots were complete and certified software available," comments Martin Macmillan, CEO, Level Four. "We are currently experiencing a high demand for our products, which support EMV projects as banks want to rapidly migrate and test their ATM networks to ensure they are ready for the EMV deadline."

Despite many of Level Four's customers being well underway in terms of EMV compliance, Finextra Research claims that 48% of banks have not progressed further than the initial planning stage for migrating their ATM networks to EMV. However, almost 90% of financial institutions in EMEA expect their EMV smart card implementation projects to be live by the 2005 compliance deadline.

Level Four's primary software technology is the ATM Channel Development Suite - a comprehensive toolkit that allows financial institutions to develop, test and rapidly deploy new content and applications within their ATM delivery channels. It includes ATM Simulator, ATM Developer and EMV FastTrack plug-ins, allowing the rapid introduction of EMV compliance. The ATM Channel Development Suite also enables financial institutions to offer relevant, personalised and interactive functionality to customers through their existing ATM networks.

About Level Four
Level Four’s development and testing products have been built to address the needs of ATM deployers seeking to maximize their investment in the ATM channel.

BRIDGE:test is targeted at banks and ATM deployers who are running, or seeking to run, a modern ATM network based on the industry-wide CEN/XFS open standard.  BRIDGE:test provides an enterprise regression test platform to test CEN/XFS based applications in a controlled environment. Customers gain benefits of the breadth of testing and improved quality assurance as well as reduced time to market due to increased testing efficiencies.

ATM Developer is targeted at banks and ATM deployers who are running states & screens protocol controlled applications such as those based on NDC or 912. ATM Developer provide a graphical environment in which customers can maintain the configuration file from creation to validation.

Since 1995, Level Four has built an impressive global customer base of banks and payments processors including, Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds TSB, Bank of America, CIBC, VocaLink and Standard Bank of South Africa. Headquartered in Dunfermline, Scotland, Level Four has offices in Dubai and Charlotte, NC, USA. http://www.levelfour.com  

Level Four’s online ATM industry resource: www.atmindustryinfo.com 

For more information, please contact:
Nicola Koronka
Hotwire
+44 (0) 20 7608 4673
levelfour 'at' hotwirepr.com