JP Morgan Chase

Chase Image-Enables NY Wholesale Lockbox Facility with VICOR Technology

Chase Press Release For Immediate Release
Contact: Lisa Selkin Lupo 212-270-5246 lselkinlupo@chase.com

New York, August 31, 1999 - The Chase Manhattan Bank, lead subsidiary of The Chase Manhattan Corporation (NYSE: CMB), today announced that it has selected VICOR, an information systems company, to image-enable its New York wholesale lockbox processing center. This is the third in a series of major upgrades Chase has implemented for its Global Receivables Management Services in 1999.

In January 1999, Chase announced a joint venture with Regulus Group, which enhanced Chase's retail lockbox with image and expanded the service nationwide. In May 1999, Chase opened its second Asian wholesale lockbox processing site in Singapore. With the decision to add VICOR's imaging technology to its wholesale service, Chase is significantly closer to its goal of offering broader receivables management services with a complete end-to-end solution to its business clients.

"We are committed to expanding Chase's capabilities to serve the growing needs of businesses, giving them the tools and information that they need to make decisions and better manage their daily working capital position," said Diane S. Reyes, Global Payables and Receivables Product Executive for Chase Treasury Solutions. "We intend to do whatever it takes - build, partner or expand - to provide corporations with a full range of solutions." Chase's next upgrade to its receivables management services, planned for later this year, is a comprehensive receivables matching service, which will consolidate paper and electronic receivables.

VICOR's image lockbox system, known as Receivables Information Delivery System (RIDS), will, with the customizations developed specifically for Chase, allow Chase to offer its business clients enhanced lockbox processing features and complete truncation of the paper generally associated with lockbox. In its place, companies will receive intraday color images of their remittance documents via an Internet enabled, browser-based receivables image retrieval system. This customized system which is proprietary to Chase and is now being extended globally to Chase customers, is available via Chase WorkspaceSM, Chase's innovative browser-based platform, which leverages advances in web technology to provide corporate treasury and investment professionals with integrated access to their account information. Chase WorkspaceSM provides the ability to conduct a full range of financial transactions from a single application.

Chase is widely recognized as a major global cash management bank and has been the lead lockbox provider in the New York tri-state area for more than 30 years. This new enhancement to Chase's receivables management platform will provide New York customers with the benefits of image technology, including faster delivery of remittance information.

"We are excited to work with Chase on this project and are delighted to provide Chase with this processing platform and imaging capability," comments Victor Nichols, President of VICOR. "RIDS is an advanced technology platform that will allow Chase to deliver rich transaction information to their corporate customers. With the many changes in the world of Accounts Receivable, corporations find themselves with an urgent need not only for the financial settlement of the item, but for the information content related to the transaction as well. RIDS will allow Chase to meet that need."

Founded in 1989 and headquartered in Palo Alto, CA, VICOR is a business consulting and systems engineering company that concentrates on working with finance industry and healthcare clients to transform their business practices and applications through the use of advanced technologies.

With $357 billion in assets, The Chase Manhattan Corporation is one of the world's premier financial services institutions, with operations in 48 countries, clients in 180 and top-tier ranking in all areas of investment banking, private banking, trading and global market activities as well as information and transaction processing.

Chase Treasury Solutions is a world leader in treasury and cash management and payment and liquidity management services to corporations, financial institutions, broker/dealers, and the public sector. Leading market research firms rate Chase the #1 cash management advisor and best at understanding payment and collection systems and at matching services to customer needs. The 1998 Ernst & Young survey ranked Chase #1 in electronic banking, ACH origination, CHIPS, FedWire and book transfer volume.