News release

ACI Worldwide and Compaq Computers to Jointly Deploy ZLE E-Payment Solutions for Retail Banks

ACI Worldwide (Nasdaq: TSAI) and Compaq Computer Corporation (NYSE: CPQ) announced today that they have agreed to jointly deploy e-payment solutions for the financial services market leveraging Compaq's Zero Latency Enterprise (ZLE) technology. Based on this agreement, ACI and Compaq expect to bring new ZLE-centric products to market in the first calendar quarter of 2002. Development has already begun on the first wave of innovative solutions based on this agreement.

True zero latency computing requires that decision-makers have a single, integrated view of the business—and their customer—that is current up to the second. In an environment such as the electronic payments market, real-time insight into customer actions and business transactions offers a compelling competitive advantage. With the ZLE-enabled payment solutions from Compaq and ACI, financial institutions will be able to make more informed business decisions based on a more holistic view of the customer, provide personalized marketing messages to consumers at an ATM or on a PC, and more easily detect fraudulent transactions, all in a real-time environment.

"The Compaq ZLE architecture makes sense for financial institutions," said Jeff Hale, senior vice president of strategic business development at ACI. "Our new ACI Commerce Framework suite can clearly benefit from many aspects of the ZLE architecture, most notably the introduction of an enterprise-wide Operational Data Store (ODS), that can be used to significantly increase the value proposition of our e-payment solutions for our customers. A well-designed ODS can help a bank proactively interact with its customers for more broadly defined risk management, and push information to customers based on a more holistic view of the overall customer relationship. And our solutions will allow this to happen in a true multi-channel delivery environment."

"Strong relationships with leading ISVs like ACI provide advanced technology solutions which meet customers' business needs," said Pauline Nist, vice president and general manager of Compaq's Nonstop Division. "Today's announcement is a clear indication of our commitment to deliver ZLE-enabled solutions across specific industries like retail banking, and further underscores Compaq's ability to create and deploy real-time enterprises."

Customers will benefit from the combination of the ACI Commerce Framework and Compaq ZLE in three general ways:

• Through the use of ACI multi-channel "push" technologies, such as its new e-Courier™ electronic document delivery software, customers will use the Compaq ODS to drive timely and relevant information to consumers that can result in significant cross-sell and up-sell opportunities. This can be done at ATMs, Internet sites or mobile phones. CRM-related information, for example, will allow banks to electronically deliver statements, bills and alerts that give consumers up-to-date relationship snapshots, plus solicit the purchase of new or different products that expand consumer relationships with their bank. Using ZLE architecture and ACI's mission-critical technology, this can be done at extremely high volumes, 24/7.
  
  
• Customer authentication and transaction authorization solutions will benefit from the ability to make real-time decisions based on a much broader customer-centric view than has typically been used. For example, instead of simply authorizing a debit transaction based on an account balance, a bank can consider other aspects of the broader customer relationship, including credit-based accounts, mortgages and investment accounts. Leveraging ACI's new scripted authorization technology, banks can make relevant risk management decisions, including the ability to dynamically change the parameters on which financial transactions are judged. Banks will be able to radically change the way that they authorize financial transactions, based on who the customer is, where they are and what relationships they have with the bank. All of this will be done with sub-second response times in high-volume transaction processing environments.
  
  
• Again linking to an enterprise-wide Compaq ODS, banks can better perform functions like fraud detection, transaction settlement and exception management. Customer-specific agreements information, timely views of transaction volumes and other relevant information can be used to improve the timeliness, efficiency and accuracy of managing the "back office" of e-payments. Tying this back to ACI's "push" technology, a bank can notify customers the minute a potentially fraudulent transaction has occurred or a significant change to an account balance is recognized.

"This is an important agreement for our financial services customers," added Hale. "The resulting technology and solutions will allow banks to dramatically improve the way they interact with their customers in a multitude of delivery channels, both wired and wireless. Compaq's ZLE architecture will help facilitate our strategy of migrating our banks to a more customer-centric view of e-payment and transaction processing. Our heritage of working with Compaq will ensure that the resulting solutions are highly relevant and differentiated in terms of features, underlying technology and mission-critical deployment."

"This relationship with ACI was an obvious choice," said Mark Bubar, Compaq's director of Global Financial Solutions. "We've worked with ACI for years to deploy enterprise-class e-payment processing solutions around the world. We are pleased that ACI has the vision to recognize the value proposition of Compaq ZLE for their financial services customers. Compaq has had great success with ZLE in the retail and airline industries, and this relationship will allow us to replicate this success in financial services."

About ACI Worldwide

Every second of every day, consumers are initiating electronic payment transactions-getting cash at ATMs, using debit and credit cards to make purchases in stores and on the Internet, banking by phone and PC, paying bills online. Twenty billion times a year, ACI software is used to process these transactions, powering the world's online payment systems. ACI was founded in 1975 and pioneered the development of applications and networking software for online transaction processing. Today more than 530 customers in 79 countries use ACI supplied software. Visit ACI Worldwide on the Internet at www.aciworldwide.com.

Company Background

Founded in 1982, Compaq Computer Corporation ("Compaq") is a leading global provider of enterprise technology and solutions. Compaq designs, develops, manufactures and markets hardware, software, solutions and services, including industry-leading enterprise storage and computing solutions, fault-tolerant business-critical solutions, communication products, and desktop and portable personal computers that are sold in more than 200 countries. Information on Compaq and its products and services is available at http://www.compaq.com.