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June 30, 2003

FIRST RUNNER UP OF BEST SCOTTISH SOFTWARE PRODUCT COMPANY 2003

Level Four's software is recognised by Scottish Enterprise at annual award ceremony

London, 30 June 2003 - Level Four Software has been awarded first runner up for best software product company in the Scottish Software Awards 2003. Level Four won the award for its EMV FastTrack tool, which assists the migration of a bank's ATM network to support EMV (Europay and MasterCard, Visa) smart cards.

Scottish Enterprise, in association with Targeting Innovation Ltd, launched the software awards this year to recognise Scottish software companies that have consistently demonstrated their ability to develop innovative software, which is being used in countries all over the world. The award was presented to Level Four at a ceremony in Glasgow on Thursday, 19 June, attended by industry leaders and members of the Scottish funding community.

The key feature of Level Four's EMV FastTrack tool is its ability to shorten the deployment cycle for banks to introduce new services at the ATM by reducing the time it takes to develop and deploy new software. This is particularly important as the European banking industry faces a deadline of January 2005 to meet EMV smart card specifications.

Abbey National was the first UK bank to work with Level Four to test major upgrades to its ATM network with the imminent arrival of EMV smart cards. EMV FastTrack was an evolution of this project which began three years ago and, following the success at Abbey National, other financial institutions have also adopted technologies from Level Four.

Level Four has received extensive support from Scottish Enterprise Fife for the development and marketing of its software technology, used in developing and testing ATMs. This has assisted the company's growth across the UK, with customers now including LINK and Nationwide.

Martin Macmillan, CEO, Level Four comments: "Our technology is built in direct response to banks' specific needs to meet forthcoming EMV standards and we feel very privileged that Scottish Enterprise has acknowledged our commitment to the industry. Our location in Dunfermline, close to ATM and POS terminal manufacturers, means we have a great resource pool on our doorstep to support both our local market and our expanding customer base across Europe."

Earlier this month, Level Four opened its new headquarters in Pitreavie Business Park, Dunfermline, to accommodate its 100 per cent growth in size over the past 12 months. Level Four has also recently appointed several strategic members to its management team, supporting its continued growth in both the UK and Europe.

Joe Noble, chief executive, Scottish Enterprise Fife, said: "It is great to see a Fife-based company performing so well in the market place and being a runner-up at these prestigious awards.

"Level Four deserves this recognition as it has not only developed highly innovative software for ATMs but worked closely with major financial institutions to find the right solutions for their specific needs.

"The company's choice of Dunfermline as its headquarters is further proof that Fife is an excellent base for firms looking to tap into local, national and international markets."

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