Sterling Commerce Awarded SWIFTReady Label for Third Consecutive Year

Sterling Multi-Enterprise Finance Gateway Provides Robust Platform for Business Growth


VIENNA, AUSTRIA--(Marketwire - September 15, 2008) - Sibos 2008 Conference -- Sterling Commerce, an AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) subsidiary, today announced that it has been awarded the SWIFTReady label for Financial EAI (enterprise application integration) for its Sterling Multi-Enterprise Finance Gateway (MEFG) solution. This is the third consecutive year Sterling Commerce has received this award, demonstrating the company's commitment to supporting the security and reliability standards established by SWIFT for the global financial services market.

SWIFT, a cooperative enterprise affiliated with the financial industry, supplies standardized and secure messaging services to more than 8,400 financial institutions in 208 countries and territories. The award evaluates products based on their ability to provide SWIFT users with the technology and functionality required to fully integrate with the SWIFT community.

"At SWIFT, we raise the bar on our evaluation criteria each year to ensure that our users can be assured of improved service, greater return on investment and increased access to the growing portfolio of SWIFT solutions from our partners' products. Sterling Commerce continues to demonstrate its commitment to the financial services community by incorporating new features and technology to their Multi-Enterprise Finance Gateway platform," said Eric Meirlaen, business analyst, SWIFT Partner management.

Recent growth in transactions and payments volumes -- largely due to an increase in corporate-to-bank connectivity and financial directives -- has created increased complexity for banks and corporate organizations alike. In the current economic environment, banks have to meet a tighter set of rules and reporting requirements while reducing costs. This has led to increased demand for a secure and reliable communications platform that can provide financial data transmissions with increased visibility, security and automation.

MEFG meets this demand to process financial data traffic at reduced cost and with consolidated control through its compliant business-to-business (B2B) communications and financial transaction gateway, which can scale and grow with the customer while delivering a high return on investment. Unlike the platforms of other EAI providers, MEFG is also well-established in the corporate world and enables both banks and corporations to automate data compatibility across all major financial standards and protocols while integrating all auditing and reporting processes, both internally and outside the enterprise.

The solution enables comprehensive security and full visibility over the very high volumes of data transfers that many SWIFT member organizations execute each day, and it also supports connectivity to Sterling Collaboration Network (SCN) via its SWIFTNet Service Bureau. This solution facilitates not only message format standards but also the secure, reliable, global transport of data between SWIFT-member banks and their corporate customers, and it provides SWIFT-member banks with direct access to the 19,000-member SCN community.

"Year after year, we have demonstrated our commitment to simplifying communications for banks and corporate organizations," said Jim Gahagan, global industry executive, Financial Services for Sterling Commerce. "By meeting the rigorous standards set by SWIFT for the third year running, we continue to exceed our customers' requirements by enabling them to respond to the challenges of frequently changing business demands and increased regulatory compliance while retaining competitive differentiation in a difficult economic climate."

In addition to SWIFT standards, MEFG-supported features include:

--  FileAct: Enhanced Header Support - Allows SWIFT to offer better
    pricing granularity to its customers for file-based traffic, such as low
    value payments
--  FileAct: "T" & "Y" copy support - Important for central institution
    reporting
--  InterAct: Enhancements to traffic management, synchronization and
    monitoring
--  SEPA routing directory support
--  SWIFTNet MT/MX message entry
--  "BIC+" & "IBAN" directory support - Automation/error correction
--  FpML 2.0 schema validation - Securities industry
    

Sterling Commerce is exhibiting the Multi-Enterprise Finance Gateway and its broad portfolio of financial services solutions at stand C617, hall C at Sibos 2008, from Sept. 15-19 in Vienna, Austria. To find out more about Sterling Commerce activities, visit www.sterlingcommerce.com/About/Events/.

About Sterling Commerce

Sterling Commerce, an AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) company, helps customers thrive in a global economy by connecting their business communities, processes, people, and technology. More than 30,000 customers worldwide -- including 82 percent of the Fortune 500 -- use Sterling Commerce solutions for business process integration, multi-channel selling, and supply chain fulfillment to improve profitability inside and outside their company walls. Headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, Sterling Commerce has offices in 19 countries and most major cities around the world. More information on the company can be found at www.sterlingcommerce.com.

Contact Information: For more information, contact: Emily Hall Sterling Commerce 614-790-8607 Jamie Leicht Fleishman-Hillard 619-237-7711