Community banks can quickly and easily offer web-based payroll

CHICAGO - May 6, 2002 - Chicago-based SurePayroll today announced that it has launched its new Custom Payroll Service for Banks(tm), a turnkey solution that allows banks to offer payroll services to small businesses.

Since its inception in 1999, SurePayroll has offered online payroll services direct to small businesses and now has thousands of customers located in every state in the United States. Recognizing that many banks would like to offer payroll services to their small business clients, SurePayroll has transformed its offerings into a private label, plug-and-play solution that allows banks to offer SurePayroll's service directly to their clients under the Bank's brand name.

SurePayroll believes that many small community banks will be interested in the new offering. Financial advisors at banks want new technology-driven services to stay competitive and create incremental revenue streams. Less than 25% of small businesses currently outsource payroll, making payroll outsourcing a large financial services opportunity for banks.

"From the banks' perspective, offering payroll can greatly enhance client retention and attract new business. Historically, banks that offer payroll services to their small business clients find that these clients use more bank products, tend to carry larger average balances and remain clients longer than their average bank customers," said Michael Alter, Senior Vice President of Business Development at SurePayroll.

"From the small business owner's perspective, outsourcing payroll provides tremendous advantages - and online payroll, in particular, overcomes many of the challenges inherent in traditional outsourcing services," says Alter. "If small business owners can go directly to their bank for online payroll service, that's win-win for everyone." According to Alter, smaller banks have historically shied away from payroll for two reasons. First, there was the complexity and hassle of paying and reporting taxes to Federal, State and local government agencies. Second, the investments required to stay current on payroll issues and build the back-end computer support were prohibitively expensive.

"SurePayroll completely eliminates both of these risks," comments Alter. "The technology investment is minimal now, because we've already built the system. Banks license our technology on an ASP basis and take advantage of our tax filing, tax payment and direct deposit services on a per customer basis. They don't need to start from scratch and invest millions. Moreover, we manage the tax payments and filings and assume the liability for any errors. The bank no longer has to worry about this."

Banks appear to be showing interest. Last year, SurePayroll licensed its technology to Wells Fargo. This year, the company has just launched the Custom Payroll Service for Banks and has already secured a number of customers, including the National Bank of California.

"We are very enthusiastic about our new partnership with SurePayroll. In the highly competitive world of banking, we need to offer a broad range of services to our small business clients," said Barry Uzel, President and CEO of the National Bank of California. "SurePayroll has allowed us to offer a highly-valued service, payroll, and it was surprisingly easy and economical to implement. Already, we are receiving strong positive feedback from our customers."

SurePayroll is in the process of creating a new division that will focus exclusively on developing and maintaining business relationships with banks. In addition to banks, SurePayroll has also targeted the accounting profession. Separately, the company has today announced Custom Payroll Service for Accountants(tm), a service offering that allows accountants to offer payroll services directly to their clients. Both offerings leverage the same core technology that drives SurePayroll's direct service. Both offerings are second-generation offerings, building on the company's successful e-Payroll offering to accountants and adding numerous new features.

In addition to partnering with banks and accounting firms, SurePayroll will continue to offer its service direct to small businesses.

About SurePayroll:
Founded in 1999, SurePayroll provides a simple, convenient, reliable and economical way for small businesses to process and distribute payroll and taxes in minutes via the Internet. The Company's Internet-based payroll service automates the entire payroll process, completely eliminating the traditional processing steps that conventional payroll services providers use. Using Surepayroll, small businesses and their employees can initiate and access their payroll from anywhere, at any time. By leveraging the Internet, payroll is completed in a fraction of the time, at a fraction of the cost.

SurePayroll is a privately held company based in Skokie, IL. SurePayroll's customer base number in the thousands and has payroll customers in all 50 states. In addition to providing payroll services directly to small business, SurePayroll also provides a private label payroll service that is used by numerous accounting firms and community banks. SurePayroll's business partners include Wells Fargo and ABN AMRO.

For More Information About SurePayroll:

Michael Alter
Senior Vice President
SurePayroll
847-676-8420, ext 7229
michael.alter@surepayroll.com

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