Visa International Selects STC to Enhance Most Sophisticated Consumer Transaction Processing System in the World

Business Wire, May 31, 2000

Business Editors

REDWOOD SHORES, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 31, 2000

STC's e*Gate To Boost Data Management And Infrastructure

Efficiencies for VisaNet

STC (Nasdaq:STCS), a leading global provider of eBusiness Integration (eBISM) solutions, today announced that Visa International, the leading credit card and payment company, has purchased STC's flagship product, e*Gate(TM) Integrator, to enhance its ability to manage and distribute data within its global network. With the implementation of e*Gate, Visa will be able to support the growing data management needs generated by VisaNet, the most sophisticated consumer transaction processing system in the world.

One of the most challenging obstacles associated with eBusiness lies with the integration and processing of tremendous volumes of data -- data that must flow seamlessly within an enterprise and among its trading partners in an integrated, near-real time fashion. Currently, VisaNet must support more than 3,200 transactions per second, and handle 250 million payment transactions per day. The implementation of e*Gate will enable Visa to more efficiently convert, manage and distribute this data to downstream information systems, and provide a scalable solution as the business expands.

"The Visa system is continually growing to keep up with the rapid increase in electronic transactions--spurred in large part by the growth of electronic commerce and consumers' preference for payment cards over cash and checks," said Terry Poore, senior vice president for Inovant, Visa's processing and IT subsidiary. "STC's e*Gate solution will help us manage that growth, while also giving us greater flexibility in the use of the data generated from VisaNet. We expect to see greater efficiencies in data management and a more efficient infrastructure."

Visa must provide its global organization with an information network that allows easy and timely access to mission critical data. Vital downstream applications, such as fraud detection systems and data warehousing applications, rely on real-time information feeds, which must be accessible from anywhere around the world. STC's e*Gate will help Visa to maintain its leadership with timely information, new payment methods, and new technologies to the benefit of its members and their cardholders.

"As the leading payment company across the globe, Visa precisely exemplifies what STC can do for an eBusiness," said Jim Demetriades, founder, chairman and CEO for STC. "Market factors like varying global economies, proliferation of consumer payment options, 24-hour markets and Euro convergence intensify the complexity of the financial services sector. Since STC's inception nearly a decade ago, we have demonstrated an ability to anticipate and support requirements like Visa's, enabling eCommerce leaders to respond effectively and with agility on a global scale."

About e*Gate(TM) Integrator

e*Gate Integrator, the foundation of STC's new product suite, is the fourth-generation product, installed at more than 1,500 customer sites worldwide. This open, distributed and proven eBusiness integration platform provides accelerated deployment of true eBusiness, and makes optimal use of the network to provide parallelism, extensibility, scalability and high availability, while avoiding processing bottlenecks or any single point of failure. As the foundation of Global 2000 companies' IT backbones, e*Gate delivers competitive advantage as the only integration platform to provide a real-time view, in conjunction with centralized management and deployment capabilities, across the global enterprise and out to the extended enterprise of trading partners and business networks.

About STC

STC (Nasdaq:STCS) is the leading global provider of eBusiness Integration (eBISM) solutions that enables the seamless flow of information within and enterprises. With its flagship solution, e*Xchange eBusiness Integration(TM) Suite, STC provides the industry's first comprehensive strategic eBusiness infrastructure to unlock the true potential of eBusiness with unprecedented performance and reliability. Since shipping its first product in 1991, STC has successfully integrated more than 1,200 leading organizations worldwide.

Software Technologies Corporation (STC) is headquartered in Monrovia, Calif., with marketing and sales headquarters in Redwood Shores, Calif. For more information, please visit www.stc.com.

Note to Editors: e*Gate and e*Xchange are trademarks of STC. eBI is a servicemark of STC. All other trade names are the property of their respective owners.