Hitachi Consulting Dove Division Initiates Payments Compliance Practice

Business Wire, March 1, 2007

Industry Expert, Paul Turgeon, Will Help Clients Meet the Rapidly Evolving Needs of the Payments Industry

DALLAS -- Hitachi Consulting, the consulting company of Hitachi, Ltd. (NYSE:HIT), announced today the formation of a Payments Compliance practice through its Dove Consulting division. This new team is focused on consultative services designed to meet the compliance needs of a payments industry in transition.

"Because of the way the industry has evolved, many card issuers, acquirers, merchants, processors, ISOs or any payment system participant look at compliance with the semi-annual card association releases as an inalterable cost of doing business," said David Dove, managing vice president of Hitachi Consulting's Dove Consulting division. "Few, if any, look at these regular changes as an opportunity to improve their technical infrastructure, add new products, streamline operations or tailor existing products to their various customer segments. Our experience shows that these releases can be leveraged into competitive advantages."

Paul Turgeon has been appointed to lead the Payments Compliance practice. Mr. Turgeon, with more than 30 years of experience in the industry, has held senior leadership roles with First Data Corporation, NYCE and ACI as well as founding Schema Corporation, a provider of systems integration and consulting services.

"The Compliance team we've brought together has extensive experience with EFT network and card association rules and release practices as well as back office operations, boasting members with prior experience at ACI, First Data Merchant Services, MasterCard, NYCE, First Data Resources, Star and Visa," said Mr. Turgeon. "Each member has more than fifteen years of card payments industry experience directly related to all aspects of the rules, products and release processes. Providers such as American Express and Discover are in the process of developing bank card offerings, while others like MasterCard and Visa are changing their ownership and governance structures. This is all occurring under a litigious backdrop where merchants are demanding more influence in the governance of the payment system."

The new practice will help industry participants assimilate the myriad association release changes and use the semi-annual compliance process to optimize their products, systems and operating infrastructure through a comprehensive set of offerings:

* Release Requirements Normalization - synthesizes the changes required by all card associations and EFT networks semi-annually into a single comprehensive document an organization can use to initiate a single compliance project to upgrade its systems, processes and business practices.

* Release Management - identifies opportunities to improve the release compliance process an organization undertakes semi-annually to meet association and network mandates and reduce the ongoing costs resulting from these releases.

* Back Office Optimization - identifies opportunities to improve settlement reconciliation, chargeback and retrieval, disputes processing and other operations required to comply with card association and network rules while maintaining or raising service levels and reducing costs.

* Portfolio Optimization - identifies key considerations for evaluating new products offered by the existing and new card associations to help clients deploy an optimal product mix and understand areas of opportunity and risk and how to benefit from them.

* Release Opportunity Maximization - identifies key business and product opportunities resulting from the technical release mandates and helps an organization find new ways to improve its offerings, maximize profitability and, re-evaluate business choices in light of emerging requirements.

"We expect our Payments Compliance practice to become the primary source of consolidated knowledge and advice regarding all aspects of card-based payment products," said Mr. Dove.

About Dove Consulting

Dove Consulting, a division of Hitachi Consulting, specializes in strategy and organization consulting for banks, payment networks and processors, broadband companies and consumer goods companies. Dove's Financial Services practice is a leader in payments, retail banking, distribution and customer strategies, having worked for eight of the top 10 banks in the United States. Dove's consulting work is supported by an ongoing commitment to payment industry research, including consumer and small business payment preferences, ATM deployment, and card issuer risk. For more information, visit www.doveconsulting.com or call (617) 482-2100.

About Hitachi Consulting

As Hitachi, Ltd.'s (NYSE:HIT) global consulting company, with operations in the US, Europe and Asia, Hitachi Consulting is a recognized leader in delivering proven business and IT solutions to Global 2000 companies across many industries. We leverage decades of business process, vertical industry, and leading-edge technology experience to understand each company's unique business needs. From business strategy development through application deployment, our consultants are committed to helping clients quickly realize measurable business value and achieve sustainable ROI.