Bring Money HomeT service goes live with PNB

9 August 2010

Earthport plc

("Earthport") or (the "Company")

Bring Money Home™ service goes live with Philippine National Bank

Earthport plc, the provider of cross-border electronic payment services, today announces that its Bring Money Home™ service has gone live at Philippine National Bank ("PNB") and the first set of customer transactions have been processed.

Bring Money Home™ enables PNB's customers to send money back to the Philippines securely through banking channels, at very competitive per transaction charges. The new service extends the bank's remittance capability by offering the convenience of online transactions.

PNB offer the service to existing customers, and also to new customers, since neither senders nor beneficiaries need to have a bank account with PNB to use the service. In turn, this helps PNB to keep its own costs low, enabling it to move some branches to lower cost virtual banking.

The service supports a wide range of money transfer purposes including remittances and inward investments. Beneficiaries benefit from a wide range of withdrawal options available from PNB, including deposit to their account, cash courier, prepaid card and mobile payments. The service therefore extends to beneficiaries who do not have a traditional bank account.

The Bring Money Home™ rollout currently includes all European countries, along with New Zealand and Australia. As well as making the service available to PNB's existing European customers, PNB has already recruited new clients in Belgium and the UK, thanks to a series of 'financial inclusion' road shows over recent months. Earthport is working with PNB to extend the service in subsequent phases to the USA, Canada, UAE and Arabian countries. The project has taken less than six months from contract signature to the first live transactions.

Alex Milan, Managing Director, Philippine National Bank (Europe) plc, said:

"This new service will enable PNB to attract new customers, including Filipinos based in European cities where PNB currently has no branch infrastructure. Last year, PNB transacted USD2.6 billion of workers' remittances. The Earthport service is also a key part of our strategy to realise cost savings, while providing continuity of service to clients in countries where PNB is moving from a physical to a lower cost virtual branch model.

"There are significant flows to the Philippines each year from countries PNB can serve using Earthport's Bring Money Home™ service, and this extensive coverage will allow us to grow our overall share of the remittances flowing into the Philippines."

Neil Burton, Director of Product Strategy at Earthport, commented:

"PNB's willingness to innovate has allowed us to introduce a completely new remittance model - enabling a major bank to leverage its brand globally and deliver new services to both existing and new customers. Our agreement with PNB has also provided Earthport with opportunities to extend its own global banking coverage and provide enhanced services for bank and corporate clients wishing to make their international payments more efficient."

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About Philippine National Bank

Philippine National Bank (PNB) is one of the biggest private commercial banks in the Philippines. Its international footprint is the widest among local banks with 108 branches, offices and subsidiaries located in America, Europe, Middle East and the Asia-Pacific, as of May 15, 2010. Earlier this year, PNB received the Financial Insights Innovation Award for Channels Innovation for its pioneering Automated Remittance Machines. PNB was the sole awardee from the Philippines in this annual search for outstanding innovations in the Asia-Pacific region.

About Earthport

Earthport (www.earthport.com) specialises in the international transactional marketplace by providing a highly secure, high volume global collection and payment capability. It has been making national and international payments and collections since 1998.

Earthport owns, provides and hosts an international money movement platform called epClearing. Using this platform, Earthport makes secure, low cost international bank payments and collections worldwide.