Sterling Commerce Partners with Allied Engineering Group and Alliance Factors to Expand Global Financial Services Offerings

At Sibos 2007, Boston, Sterling Commerce, an AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) subsidiary, today announced partnerships with Allied Engineering Group and Alliance Factors to distribute Sterling Commerce solutions for the financial services industry in Africa, the Middle East and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS countries). By combining Sterling Commerce financial services solutions with the companies’ regional expertise, business focus and experience in payment systems, these partnerships provide Sterling Commerce with a strong platform to deliver flexible and customer-focused solutions to end-users in these markets. Allied Engineering Group’s territory spans more than 40 countries, and Alliance Factors’ territory covers 13 countries. Together with the partnership with Perago Africa, Sterling Commerce expertise now spans more than 75 countries across Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Central Asia, delivering additional value to the SWIFT member community through continued investment and expansion in established and emerging markets. Sterling Commerce and Allied Engineering Group see a significant opportunity to provide Middle Eastern and African organizations with solutions to integrate, automate, secure and manage the exchange of financial and payment information. Allied Engineering Group is a leading provider of financial infrastructure services and a SWIFT Business Partner, Service Partner and Solutions Partner for the Middle East, Africa and Cyprus. Sterling Commerce and Alliance Factors are partnering to support the growing demand in Russia/CIS and Mongolia. Alliance Factors, also a SWIFT Business and Service partner, offers integration middleware and straight through processing (STP) solutions. Sterling Commerce, celebrating its fifth year of SWIFT partnership status this year, offers a unique combination of network, community management and market-leading, multi-enterprise collaboration infrastructure solutions to help financial services organizations to optimize and integrate business processes within their enterprise and among their trading communities. "The partnerships with Alliance Factors and Allied Engineering Group build on the existing relationship between Sterling Commerce and SWIFT to provide comprehensive solutions to the financial services industry,” said Michele Carvalho, director of business partners for Sterling Commerce. "With these two new partners, Sterling Commerce continues to execute on its growth strategy to deliver solutions for the financial services industry. Both companies are well positioned in this territory and business area to deliver these solutions at optimal value for our customers.” "Through the partnership with Sterling Commerce, Alliance Factors will be able to extend its solution offering to our existing customer base and unlock new business opportunities based on the Sterling Commerce solution set,” said Alexander Kousheversky, director of sales and business development for Alliance Factors. "In Sterling Commerce, we see a partner with a proven track record of providing industry-leading products and solutions to financial services customers worldwide. This fits perfectly with Alliance Factors’ vision to provide financial system solutions within the larger financial services market.” "Sterling Commerce has a long-standing reputation as a company with the vision and expertise to provide industry-approved solutions to solve complex business challenges,” said Dr. Mohamed Sadek of Allied Engineering Group. "Our partnership with Sterling Commerce presents a powerful proposition on which we can further build and extend our own experience to deliver additional value to our customers as well as exploit new business opportunities.” Sterling Commerce will be showcasing the Service Bureau offering and Sterling Multi-Enterprise Finance Gateway at Sibos, taking place from October 1-5 in Boston. For more information, please visit the Sterling Commerce Stand, G33, or visit us online at www.sterlingcommerce.com. About Allied Engineering Group Allied Engineering Group (AEG) was established in 1993 in Lebanon, and expanded to open branches in Bahrain, Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, and soon in Cyprus and Ivory Coast. AEG offers software applications products and high-quality IT consultancy services to financial institutions and has been a SWIFT Service Partner and SWIFT Business Partner since 1998. AEG has today the largest Service Bureau with 285 member banks. It also offers service to more than 450 banks in 40 countries. For more information, please visit www.aeg-mea.com. About Alliance Factors Alliance Factors Ltd. is a provider of professional services and solutions for the FSI since 1994. Being Business, Service and Education Partner of SWIFT the company serves 800+ banks and financial institutions in Russia, CIS and Mongolia. SWIFT Service Bureau operated by Alliance Factors Ltd. outsources SWIFT infrastructure for 139 small and medium size banks. Among other business lines of the company are implementation of banking applications, STP and integration solutions, certified maintenance and enhancements for the hardware and software environment. Detailed information about Alliance Factors Ltd. can be found at http://www.alliance.ru. About Sterling Commerce Sterling Commerce, a subsidiary of AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T), has more than 30 years of leadership and expertise in extending processes beyond the edge of the enterprise to enable visible business with suppliers, customers, partners and employees. With more than 29,000 customers worldwide, the company is one of the world’s largest providers of multi-enterprise collaboration solutions. Sterling Commerce builds collaborative, multi-enterprise communities for customers in the retail, consumer packaged goods, manufacturing, financial services, healthcare and telecommunications industries. For detailed, up-to-date information about Sterling Commerce and its solutions, visit http://www.sterlingcommerce.co.uk.