COCC Automates Key Accounting Tasks for Washington Trust

AVON, Conn. March 28, 2007 — COCC, a leading provider of next generation technology services for financial institutions, today announced that Washington Trust Bancorp, Inc. of Westerly, Rhode Island is utilizing COCC’s tailored implementation of the state-of-the-art Oracle Financials system to produce key financial information while saving hours of work.

“The quality and timeliness of information we get from COCC’s implementation of Oracle Financials far exceeds the expectations we had set for the project,” said Barbara Perino, Senior Vice President — Operations and Technology at Washington Trust. “Vendor after vendor told us they couldn’t accommodate our request for automation of daily consolidated financial reporting. Yet COCC understood our needs immediately and built an outstanding, time-saving solution that performs flawlessly. This is exactly what we were looking for in a technology partnership.”

With more than $2.4 billion in assets, Washington Trust Bancorp, Inc. is a publicly-traded registered bank holding company and financial holding company. Through its subsidiaries, Washington Trust offers a broad range of financial services to individuals and businesses, including wealth management, through its offices in Rhode Island, Massachusetts and southeastern Connecticut.

“As our organization grew, we were challenged with producing financial reporting and accounting results in a more timely manner,” said Maria Janes, Vice President and Controller at Washington Trust. “We knew that it was possible to automate the manual processes we were using to produce consolidated financial reporting results. COCC’s representatives took the time to understand how we wanted the product to work. They took our ideas back to their staff and developed a proposal that was perfect. Their consolidation solution is better than what we even expected.”

“Our first decision in this process was to decide whether it was better to run Oracle in-house or use a third party,” said Ms. Janes. “COCC’s experience with Oracle Financials and the considerable savings in installation and ongoing testing and management of the system convinced us that outsourcing was the right way to go.”

COCC estimates that an in-house installation of Oracle Financials at Washington Trust would take more than six months to accomplish and cost more than $200,000 when consultants and database administrators’ time are considered. COCC’s implementation of Oracle Financials eliminates these costs, saving substantial dollars and time. Washington Trust was up and running within three months of signing their contract. The system also eliminates upgrade expenses since all version upgrades are managed by COCC’s data center and appear as new functionality on Washington Trust’s desktops.

“We appreciated the opportunity to prove our depth and experience to Washington Trust,” said Matt L’Heureux, COCC’s Assistant Vice President, Customer Service. “Working together to develop and implement leading edge solutions with our customers is what COCC technology partnerships are all about.”

COCC runs more instances of Oracle Financials than any vendor outside of Oracle itself. The company installed its first instance of Oracle Financials in 1999 and over the years has been recognized for its expertise in client installations, version upgrades, and efficiency enhancements. COCC also offers a team of bank financial experts to work with clients at every step of the installation process and for support thereafter.

“We always have knowledgeable staff to call,” said Ms. Janes. “We are extremely impressed with the speed of connectivity and the overall responsiveness of the organization. We know we have partnered with a good company.”

COCC’s Director of Strategic Products, Linda Stahl, said, “Our many hours of work with Oracle Financials have paid off tremendously. We took a state-of-the-art product that runs in the most sophisticated companies in the world and adapted it to the unique needs of community banks. We are pleased to see Washington Trust enjoying the benefits of this outstanding system.”