Banca d'Italia, ICBPI and VocaLink Announce Their Cooperation to Make the Respective SEPA-schemes Compliant Clearing and Settlement Mechanisms Interoperable and to Broaden Reachability Throughout the Single Euro Payments Area

LONDON, MILAN and ROME, March 30, 2010 - The Italian infrastructure for clearing and settlement of retail payments
(Clearing and Settlement Mechanism - CSM) ICBPI/BI-COMP, operated by Banca
d'Italia and Istituto Centrale delle Banche Popolari Italiane (ICBPI), and
the international payments specialist VocaLink today announced that they are
collaborating to establish a link for the exchange of SEPA payments based on
the European Automated Clearing House Association (EACHA) interoperability
standards. The customers of the two CSMs will thus be able to count on a
fast, cost-effective and reliable way of achieving mutual reach, with no need
for participation in the reachable CSM.

The provision of reciprocal interconnection services between the CSMs
managed by VocaLink and ICBPI/Banca d'Italia, allowing them to mutually
exchange (and settle in TARGET2) SEPA compliant payments on behalf of their
respective banking communities, will contribute to the SEPA aim of developing
a fully integrated and competitive retail market with no differences between
national and cross-border payments.

VocaLink and ICBPI/Banca d'Italia plan to enable their customers to
execute SEPA Credit Transfers already in the course of Q2 2010. Afterwards
the CSMs will start assessing the extension of the interoperability to the
SDDs as well.

Franco Passacantando, Managing Director for Central banking, markets and
payment system Area at Banca d'Italia, says: "The planned interoperability of
the Italian clearing system with the UK's VocaLink Euro CSM represents a
further initiative taken by Banca d'Italia to fully support the SEPA, also by
means of direct provision of services. It is a necessary step towards the
integration of the single European market for retail payments."

Giuseppe Capponcelli, General Manager at ICBPI, comments: "SEPA brings
unique challenges for European banks and corporates. ICBPI's involvement in
an interoperability arrangement with VocaLink will allow us to provide
additional services to banks working with either party."

Giacinto Cosenza, Italian Country Manager at VocaLink, adds: "We are
delighted to be working with the Italian infrastructures in this
strategically important market. This is a major milestone on the path to
deliver VocaLink's SEPA solutions to the Italian market while further growing
our CSM reach in continental Europe."

About Banca d'Italia

Banca d'Italia, the central bank of the Republic of Italy, manages the
multilateral clearing and settlement component (BI-COMP) of the Italian
retail payment system, which enables settlement in central bank money of euro
payments made by means of paper or electronic instruments. Entities acting in
free competition and in compliance with Banca d'Italia provisions on this
matter, among which ICBPI, carry out the activities preparatory to clearing
payments handled via electronic procedures. The transactions settled in 2008
by means of BI-COMP amounted to over 2 billion in volume, for a total value
of EUR3,440 billion, equal to 2.2 times the Italian GDP.

To foster the integration of the single market for retail payments in
euro, BI-COMP handles SEPA Credit Transfers following the launch of the SEPA
and, from November 2nd, 2009, SEPA Direct Debits (both Core and B2B). To
enable its community to exchange SEPA payments with participants in other
systems, the ICBPI/BI-COMP CSM has been made interoperable with other CSMs at
cross-border level (currently Equens and STEP.AT) according to the EACHA
model; moreover Banca d'Italia offers an "intermediation" service to exchange
SEPA payments with participants in the STEP2 system managed by EBA-Clearing.

About ICBPI

ICBPI GROUP is composed of highly experienced companies specialising in
the design, planning and management of services for banks, financial
institutions and insurance companies. In their respective areas of operation,
the companies in the Group are able to support clients in achieving growth
and a competitive market approach.

The main company of the group: ICBPI, is a "bank for banks" offering to
the banking system both domestic and international, SEPA compliant payment
services and systems, and accounting and financial services under a business
processing outsourcing model. Through other ICBPI Group companies, ICBPI is
market leader in a score of sectors: monetics, payments, bank-to-corporate
services, financial dashboard and data synthesis systems; monitor and alert
systems to supervision authorities, anti-money laundering, pension funds
managing, and compliance systems.

ICBPI holds together with its strategic partner ICCREA BANCA 45% of
domestic market in the Automated Clearing House services, is part of EACHA
(interoperable ACH at EU level) and supplies 33 direct and 428 indirect
partners with the SCT service. As for payments, ICBPI processes over 62
million cheques and bank drafts as well as pension payments from the Italian
National Social Security Institute in Italy and abroad. Within CBI Consortium
services it is a leading Institute in the Delegated Technical Structure
services with more than 170,000 active businesses and over 80 Access Point
Provider Banks.

About VocaLink

VocaLink is a specialist payments partner to banks, their corporate
customers and government departments, designing and delivering smarter
domestic and international automated euro payments systems as well as smarter
ATM switching solutions.

VocaLink's switching platform connects over 60,000 ATMs, the world's
busiest network, while VocaLink's payments platform processes over 500
million payments per month.

Having pioneered electronic payments for over 40 years, many major
organisations at international level have come to rely on VocaLink services.
For example, VocaLink runs Real-time Payments Platform, the central
infrastructure for the UK's Faster Payments Service, and is now the
outsourcee of the majority of Sweden's domestic payments thanks to its
partnership with BGC, Sweden's leading payments provider.

As for the service delivery, VocaLink's platforms operate on never-fail
technology to ensure total reliability and availability 24 hours a day to
meet customer needs.

In short, VocaLink smarter payments capabilities offer banks, corporates
and government departments reach throughout SEPA and beyond.

www.vocalink.com/

PR contact: Deborah Souter, Corporate communications manager, VocaLink, Drake House,
Homestead Road, Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire, WD3 1FX, United Kingdom, +44(0)8709208651, www.vocalink.com/, Confirmation email address: enquiries at pr-sending.co.uk