Boston, Mass. - April 19, 2001 - Escher Group Limited, a leading provider of peer-to-peer messaging and data management solutions, today announced that its WebRiposte™ platform will provide mission-critical functionality for the UK Post Office's network banking service. The Post Office announced yesterday that it has partnered with Escher Group, ICL and IBM to offer a wide range of real-time banking transactions through its network of 18,000 branches. This will enable the Post Office to offer extensive banking and e-commerce services targeted at its weekly customer base of 28 million people. Customers with basic accounts will have the ability to use Post Office branches to deposit and withdraw cash, as well as check their balance and account details in real time.

"This initiative represents a major step towards offering a full range of banking services through Post Office branches," said Basil Larkins, managing director of network banking at the Post Office. "Together with other partners it will give the Post Office on line access to the back office of banks, providing a physical network for Internet banks and those from overseas as well as a wider network of local branches for the High Street banks."

WebRiposte is Escher Group's Web-enabled, peer-to-peer messaging platform. It extends and enhances the secure messaging functionality of the flagship Riposte® software with integrated FTP and HTTP Servers, an active Web content distribution service, and browser-based administration and configuration tools.

For the network banking service, WebRiposte will provide both the front-end transaction processing, as well as the data transport and management functionality. The Post Office will benefit from a high-volume, fault-tolerant, distributed, transaction-processing platform while gaining support for Internet standards and a full set of XML-messaging and content delivery services.

The UK Post Office has been a customer of Escher Group since 1996. At that time, Escher's flagship messaging product, Riposte, was chosen to automate 40,000 counter positions within 18,000 Post Office branches, giving the Post Office the largest secure retail/banking computer network in Europe. For the year 1999-2000, the Post Office achieved a transaction volume of 2.42 billion amounting to a value of $239 billion. WebRiposte is built upon the core messaging infrastructure that has been deployed in the Riposte product line.

The flexibility of WebRiposte enables utilization of the product in any type of application that requires handling of mission-critical, sensitive data. ICL Pathway will deploy WebRiposte on behalf of the Post Office throughout the country's retail outlets.

"WebRiposte provides a solid foundation for reliable information exchange and transaction processing in diverse, distributed computing environments," a spokesperson for Escher Group said. "With WebRiposte, it is now possible for post offices to project counter transactions over the Internet. This converged platform gives the end-customer the convenience of being able to perform transactions with transparency and consistency across the physical and electronic channels."

About Escher Group, Limited

Escher Group Limited is a leading provider of distributed transaction processing and data management solutions and services. The company offers a business-to-business XML-based transaction management environment, used in thousands of locations worldwide. Since its introduction in 1993, Riposte®, Escher's flagship messaging solution, has grown to become the market leader in post office counter automation.

Trademarks: WebRiposte and Riposte are trademarks or registered trademarks of Escher Group, Limited in the United States and/or other countries. All other product names mentioned herein are trademarks of their respective owners.

Contact Information:

Escher Group Limited
information@eschergroup.com