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July 12, 2004

RABOBANK SELECTS LEVEL FOUR TO SUPPORT OPEN STANDARDS ATM NETWORK

Level Four wins first XFS customer

London, 12 July 2004 - Level Four Software, the leading provider of ATM test and development software, today announced that Rabobank is the first customer to license the XFS extension of its core technology, ATM Channel Development Suite. The XFS extension will support development projects across Rabobank's open architecture ATMs, including migration to EMV, and will automate the testing of its network of more than 3,000 ATMs throughout The Netherlands. As Level Four's tools enable faster and more efficient ATM testing, Rabobank's customers will benefit from the rapid introduction of new ATM services.

Rabobank has taken advantage of XFS*, the new open architecture interface standard, which enables it to run ATM hardware and software from different suppliers. Rabobank has developed a proprietary ATM application that sits alongside Wincor Nixdorf's ProTopas ATM software, running on NCR machines. Rabobank required an effective ATM test and development solution to work in conjunction with its open architecture ATMs. It selected the XFS extension of Level Four's ATM Channel Development Suite, to ensure thorough, independent testing, in both development and regression testing phases.

Level Four is also supporting the bank's migration path to EMV. Using Level Four's ATM Simulator and EMV FastTrack products, Rabobank can more rapidly achieve EMV compliance in its ATM applications.

Level Four's XFS extension tests the live ATM application using a simulated hardware environment. The "virtual ATM" concept significantly aids the process of developing ATM applications as it provides simulated hardware device models on which testing can be carried out without the need for using physical ATM hardware. As a result, testing is scripted and automatically executed, reducing the need for manual intervention, ensuring a higher level of confidence at time of deployment, and ultimately, greater levels of customer satisfaction.

"XFS open architecture has created a fundamental shift in the market for ATM software, with banks no longer tied to their ATM hardware vendors for the software that drives their machines. Banks are welcoming the increased level of competition in the marketplace," comments Martin Macmillan, CEO at Level Four. "Our vendor independent ATM testing suite is a natural fit with the move to open standards and the increased level of testing required. Rabobank recognised our technology leadership in this area and we are delighted to support their ongoing ATM test and development needs."

Jan Looij, senior project manager at Rabobank, comments: "With the rapid changes in ATM technology, end-to-end testing is ever more important. Level Four's ATM Channel Development Suite enables us to automate complex ATM network testing from our live XFS-based software, peripherals and hardware, to the connections with the host system. This will vastly reduce testing cycles and improve time to market of enhancements to ATM functionality. In this way our customers will benefit from new functionality much faster than before. Level Four is a very progressive organisation and its knowledge and expertise is proving invaluable throughout the upgrades to our ATM channel."

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Note to editor

* XFS - The open software layer XFS evolved from a Banking Solutions Vendor Council initiated by Microsoft in 1991. The result was referred to as Windows Open System Architecture/Extensions for Financial Services (WOSA/XFS). The aim was to provide multi-hardware support, without having to change application programming specific to hardware features. Since 1998 the standard has been adopted and developed by the European Committee for Standardization (CEN), and is now referred to as XFS.

About the Rabobank Group

The Rabobank Group is the largest financial services provider in the Dutch market. Thanks to its co-operative foundation, the Rabobank Group is focused first and foremost on the customer. Creating customer value is its core objective. The Rabobank Group is the world's most creditworthy private financial group. It has over nine million private and business customers and is market leader in the Netherlands in virtually every area of financial services. The Rabobank Group consists of 320 independent local co-operative Rabobanks, which have a combined total of over 1,4 million members, and encompasses well-known specialized subsidiaries such as De Lage Landen (leasing and vendor finance), Gilde Investment (venture capital), Interpolis (insurance), Rabobank International (corporate and investment banking, international retail banking) and Robeco (asset management). The group is represented internationally with 169 business locations in 34 countries.

About Level Four

Level Four’s integrated BRIDGE suite of open ATM software products have been developed to address the needs of ATM deployers seeking to maximise their investment in the ATM channel. BRIDGE 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. As a true holistic offering, BRIDGE recognises the needs of ATM deployers in the areas of installation, testing and monitoring as well as run-time ATM software.

Since 1995, Level Four has built an impressive global customer base of banks and payments processors including, Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds TSB, National Bank of Dubai, Rabobank, LINK and Standard Bank of South Africa. Headquartered in Dunfermline, Scotland, Level Four also has offices in Dubai and Charlotte NC.


For further information contact:

Martin Macmillan
Level Four Software Ltd
Tel: +44 (0) 1383 720 118

E-mail: martin@levelfour.com

Hotwire PR
Nicola Truman / Alexia Ward
+44 (0) 20 7608 2500
E-mail: levelfour@hotwirepr.com