SEVEN INSTITUTIONS TO UTILIZE COCC'S IMAGE EXCHANGE SERVICES

AVON, Conn., September 13, 2005 – COCC, a leading provider of next generation technology services for financial institutions, today announced that seven more client institutions have signed agreements to send image cash letters to the Federal Reserve Banks and image exchange partners such as Endpoint Exchange.

“Today’s announcement extends COCC’s successful implementations of image exchange,” said Betsy Didan, COCC’s Document Processing Manager. “Our Savings Institute pilot has proven our financial and operational models by showing that real money can be saved through next generation check image processing.”

Savings Institute Bank and Trust of Willimantic, Conn. began its pilot on April 26, 2005 with COCC and the Federal Reserve Banks’ FedForward^SM Image Cash Letter Deposit service. All checks deposited at the bank are transmitted to COCC where they are encoded electronically and assembled into an outgoing image cash letter. When the images are balanced, COCC transmits them to the Federal Reserve Bank for deposit.

This month, North Brookfield Savings Bank in North Brookfield, Mass. will be wrapping up the FedForward testing process and depositing its first image cash letters. Stamford Federal Credit Union in Stamford, Conn. is next in line and is currently testing to begin sending their outgoing items to the Federal Reserve via COCC. The additional five institutions, headquartered in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, have committed to installations, giving COCC a total of eight image exchange clients.

COCC currently provides check processing services for 91 financial institutions throughout the northeastern United States. The company processes eight million items and mails nearly one million statements per month and approximately 97% of those statements use images in place of physical checks.

James McNealy, Account Executive at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, said that COCC has been one of the early players in image exchange processing. “COCC’s success in contracting customers for image cash letter deposits is a very encouraging sign of the growing acceptance of image processing,” said McNealy. “We look forward to receiving images from COCC’s clients via the FedForward program and to sending inclearing images to COCC on behalf of these customer institutions via the FedReceipt^SM service to be deployed this fall.”

The FedForward, FedReturn^SM, and FedReceipt product suites leverage the Federal Reserve’s nationwide clearing network to offer faster clearing through later deadlines and electronic transmission, reduced risk through expedited returns processing and opportunities for lower end-to-end processing costs.

Decreasing check volume, the industry’s adoption of image clearing strategies and the resulting infrastructure changes are putting pressure on financial institutions to cut costs and rethink their current item processing and transportation solutions.  As paper volume continues to decline the costs associated with clearing these items will increase.

“Financial institutions that believe this isn’t happening are in for a very rude awakening,” said COCC’s Didan.

Savings Institute decided early on to make the change to image exchange. As a result, the bank is currently experiencing a 19% reduction in transit item processing costs and anticipates greater savings as the FedReceipt and FedReturn products, as well endpoint and image same day settlement options, become available in the fourth quarter.

Donna Irish, Savings Institute’s Vice President Operations, said “the COCC team has done a phenomenal job of identifying procedures, listening to our ideas, and implementing a cost effective plan. We are glad that we took this step early and are in a position to reap the benefits of the change to image.”

COCC developed a detailed analysis of Savings Institute’s item processing operation to show the bank what changes needed to be made and where the operational savings would be found. In preparing the analysis, COCC reviewed all intelligent clearing options with the bank to ensure best clearing, availability and pricing options. With that information, COCC compared current and image check processing costs so that the bank could calculate the economic advantages of image exchange. Installation, licensing and per item operating expenses are included in this robust analysis.

Didan said that analyses of this sort are standard for COCC clients. “It’s the only way that a financial institution can see if image exchange makes sense.”

Kirk Burnham, Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at North Brookfield Savings Bank, said, “From the courier costs alone, this is a no brainer. The annual equipment expense is half that of our courier costs, in addition to the efficiencies created through the elimination of microfilm and encoding. I believe if a $160M bank can see the savings, anybody can.”

The Federal Reserve Banks offer a full range of financial services including Cash, Check, FedImage ^SM Services, FedACH ^SM, Fedwire ® Funds Service, Fedwire Securities Service and National Settlement Service. In addition, the Fed offers services designed to support the use of Financial Services, including Account Management Information and Service Charge Information.

For more information about the Federal Reserve Banks’ products and services, visit www.frbservices.org.