Riposte Provide's Hellenic Post with Unmatched Transaction Speed and Reliability

Boston, Mass. - March 6, 2000 - Escher Group Ltd has announced that Greece's Hellenic Post Office has selected the Escher's core automation solution, Riposte, to modernize the country's postal network to meet increasingly sophisticated market demands. Greece's Hellenic Post chose Escher's Riposte system for its reliability, speed of transaction processing, ease-of-use and low cost of ownership.

Greece joins a customer base of eleven countries across four continents that have implemented the scalable, flexible Riposte solution to support a full range of services from postal transactions and savings accounts, to utility and welfare payments. Riposte offers a fully integrated XML solution for B2B e-commerce, enabling postal authorities to easily integrate disparate sources of information across organizations.

With more than 900 post offices, 2500 counters, and 300 postal agencies, Hellenic Post is Greece's sole mail service provider. "The Riposte implementation is a key part of our commitment to streamline processes and provide the most efficient and comprehensive service to our customers," said Panos Kyriakopoulos, managing director of the Hellenic Post. "This is the first system of its kind to be used at the Hellenic Post, so ease-of-use and reliability are key requirements for our employees. Riposte has an extremely user-friendly interface and necessitates minimal training. We have seen Riposte's success in postal authorities around the globe, and we look forward to achieving similar success."

Riposte's unique messaging architecture enables postal networks of all sizes and in the most remote geographies to easily and securely automate mail services and other customer services such as retail, agency and banking transactions. Hellenic Post will use Riposte to automate all customer-related activities, including mail and postage deliveries, transportation tickets, bill payments, government payments (including retirement pension and other allowances), express mail service, financial services and handling of Postal Bank transactions. During the initial implementation, the Hellenic Post will deploy Riposte at 250 counters in 15 post offices, eventually growing to 900 post offices with more than 2000 counters at the final stage of deployment.

"We are extremely pleased to partner with Hellenic Post as they strive to work toward the highest standards of service using the industry's most advanced technology," commented a spokesperson for Escher. "Riposte has proven to be scalable and flexible enough to address the postal automation requirements of the most diverse environments. We look forward to continued global success as Riposte becomes the international standard for mission-critical transaction processing."

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
info@eschergroup.com