euroConex Named Merchant Acquirer of the Year; NOVA's European Affiliate Awarded at Cards International Global Award Event

Ketil Fridheim, CEO, euroConex Nordic and head of Europeanmarketing, was present to accept the award. "I am immensely proud thateuroConex was selected as Merchant Acquirer of the Year," commentedFridheim. "This is an important source of inspiration for us as wecontinue our aggressive pan-European growth strategy whilst providingthe best possible service to our customers."

The Cards International Global Award is an annual event. The awardhas been established by the international card industry, and the juryconsists of an international panel of judges and commentators. Eachyear the winners are announced during the annual gala dinner, whichthis year took place in Milan.

euroConex has demonstrated a successful acquisitions model overthe past few years, acquiring the merchant processing portfolios ofleading financial institutions including Alliance & Leicester in theUnited Kingdom, Bank of Ireland, Cardpoint in Poland, SEB/Europay inNorway, and Citibank Card Acceptance. There are currently more than200,000 merchant locations in the euroConex portfolio.

About NOVA

NOVA Information Systems, a leader in the payment processingindustry is a wholly owned subsidiary of U.S. Bancorp (NYSE: USB).Combined, NOVA and its affiliates First Horizon Merchant Services,euroConex and Elan provide global merchant processing services tofinancial institutions and clients in the United States, Canada, andEurope. NOVA offers integrated payment processing services to morethan 1,000,000 merchants worldwide. For more information, visitwww.novainfo.com.

About euroConex

euroConex Technologies, Ltd is the European affiliate of NOVAInformation Systems and a wholly owned subsidiary of U.S. Bancorp. Thecompany provides an integrated payments processing service tofinancial institutions and merchants across Europe using amulti-currency platform. In addition to point of sale and e-commercesolutions, euroConex also provides a range of specialistmulti-currency products including Dynamic Currency Conversion (DCC).For more information visit www.euroconex.com.