Corporate | 5 April 2005 07:30

SHS continues on international course of expansion:

Corporate-news announcement sent by DGAP. The sender is solely responsible for the contents of this announcement. —————————————————————————— SHS continues on international course of expansion: Portuguese Market Leader for Consumer Loans Credibom Chooses GUARDEAN to Automate its Risk Management Processes Munich, April 5th, 2005. Munich-based SHS Informationsysteme AG today announces that Credibom, the Portuguese consumer finance house, will use the GUARDEAN risk management solution from SHS to process all creditworthiness checks of new and existing customers. Credibom is a subsidiary of Sofinco, which holds 100% of the company. Credibom is also part of the French Crédit Agricole S.A. Group. Aboveaverage growth in new consumer loans in recent years and a portfolio of several hundred thousand consumer loan agreements have made Credibom the leading credit bank in Portugal. By selecting GUARDEAN, Credibom has created the foundation to master these challenges in the future as well. The project is implemented by SHS Polar, the Spanish subsidiary of SHS and the consultancy will be developed by the Portuguese company CrediRisk. “Without increasingly automating the loan granting process, we could hardly handle the growth in our business. We were looking for a highly scalable risk management solution which can be adapted quickly to new business models. This flexibility and the fact that GUARDEAN has been deployed successfully by international financial services providers and that Credirisk the local consultancy company were given their support and advising on this tool were the main reasons for our decision in favour of GUARDEAN” said Mr. João Remígio, risk manager at Credibom. One of the strong aspects of the GUARDEAN solution is its Agency Gateway, which provides Europe-wide connectivity to almost 40 credit reference agencies via a single interface. Credibom uses this GUARDEAN gateway to access all relevant data to check the creditworthiness of new customers within a matter of seconds. The monthly review of all active loans according to the Basel II equity requirements is another key element of the solution developed by Credirisk and implemented on the Guardean system. GUARDEAN thus serves as the central decision-making authority in the analysis of new and existing customers, proving that it is a market leader even for industry-specific solutions despite its high degree of standardization. “SHS is proud to have Credibom as a customer. The unique features GUARDEAN Risk Management Process Suite provides will enable the organization to recognize superior operational results in a short amount of time” said Dirk Roesing, chief executive officer SHS Informationssysteme AG, pointing out the importance of the Credibom deal. “Credibom’s status as a subsidiary of Crédit Agricole opens up interesting prospects for us to expand our position in the banking sector. Serving more than 21 million private customers and operating some 9,100 branches, Crédit Agricole is one of the largest banks in Europe.” _______________________________________________________________ About Credibom In 2004 Credibom maintained its position as the market leader in credit finance with a market share of 11.5%, according to Consumer Credit information published by ASFAC (Associação das Sociedades Financeiras para Aquisição a Crédito). Credibom obtained a net result of 15 million euros at year end 2004 with a credit portfolio of 548 million Euros. The position achieved by Credibom in an aggressive and competitive market reflects the success of its chosen strategy of generating sustained growth in revenue and volume of credit granted, while controlling costs through a comprehensive risk analysis which maintains asset quality within established criteria. Credibom is 100% owned by Sofinco, a French institution specialising in consumer credit, whose main stockholder is Crédit Agricole, the most important French banking group and one of the most important European financial institutions, with a presence in 66 countries around the world. For Sofinco, already present in 9 countries, its entry to Portugal through Credibom, arises from its strategy of international expansion, with the clear objective of leadership of the European consumer credit market. This confidence in the potential of Credibom adds important value for upcoming challenges in the short term, permitting synergies with Banque Sofinco as well as with the other European subsidiaries. Credibom begins the 2005 year with the agreement between Sofinco and BCP to acquire the consumer credit business in the household dealers sector currently run by Credibanco, during the first half of this year. This 65 million Euros business involves the transfer of a credit portfolio of 212 million Euros and a workforce of 120 employees. Following the acquisition Credibom will continue to grow substantially, with increased quality of customer service and increased competitiveness of its product portfolio as its principal goals. Credirisk is a Portuguese company, founded in 2003 and focused on client needs with the principal objective of supplying risk analysis and strategic consultancy services. These consist of debtor management, strategic customer management, implementation of Basel II, credit proposal management, payment defaults monitoring, Data quality controls and Data Mining. SHS Informationssysteme AG is listed on the Prime Standard segment of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and operates a subsidiary in Spain, SHS Polar. The IT services provider focuses on offering customer management and credit risk management solutions to companies with a broad customer base. In 2004, the company recorded revenues of EUR 32 million. The customers of SHS AG include T-Mobile, T-Online, Südleasing, BMW Bank, Telefónica, amena, Barclaycard and other international companies in the information and financial sectors. For more information, see http://www.shs.de . Further information: SHS Informationssysteme AG Wolfgang Brand Tel: +49 – 89 – 747257- 0 e-mail: wolfgang.brand@shs.de HOSCHKE & CONSORTEN Grit Muschelknautz Tel: +49 – 40 – 369050-41 e-mail: g.muschelknautz@hoschke.de Credirisk, Consultores Beloura Office ParkEdificio 3, Piso 22710-444 Sintra Portugal Tel: +351 210 069 280 E-mail: geral@credirisk.biz end of message, (c)DGAP 05.04.2005 —————————————————————————— WKN: 507240; ISIN: DE0005072409; Index: Listed: Geregelter Markt in Frankfurt (Prime Standard); Freiverkehr in Berlin- Bremen, Düsseldorf, Hamburg, Hannover, München und Stuttgart 050730 Apr 05