SunTrust Makes Strategic Ownership Investment in Viewpointe

SUNTRUST MAKES STRATEGIC OWNERSHIP INVESTMENT IN VIEWPOINTE AND SIGNS LONG-TERM AGREEMENT TO UTILIZE ITS IMAGE ARCHIVING SERVICES

ATLANTA - SunTrust Banks, Inc. and Viewpointe Archive Services, LLC, announced today that SunTrust has taken an ownership position in Viewpointe and concurrently signed a long-term agreement to implement the company's check and document image-based archiving technology.

As a result, SunTrust will join Viewpointe's founding partners J. P. Morgan Chase & Co., Bank of America, and International Business Machines (IBM) as an owner in the company. Terms of the investment were not disclosed.

Implementation of the imaging services, which will include check and document storage and retrieval, will begin immediately and it is anticipated that SunTrust will achieve full operational access of the Viewpointe check archive in mid-2003.

"This technology will provide us an opportunity to further increase the efficiency of our processing and retrieval operations, while providing a valuable, convenient service to our customers," said SunTrust Vice Chairman Ted Hoepner. "Our ownership position in Viewpointe further underscores our commitment to embrace proven, cutting-edge technology to achieve our business, financial and customer-service goals."

John Lettko, CEO of Viewpointe Archive Services, added "SunTrust is a highly respected financial services leader in the United States and their decision to become a customer as well as a Viewpointe owner is a very strong endorsement of our business model and plans for image exchange. I am happy to welcome SunTrust to our rapidly growing list of customers including: Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, First Tennessee and HSBC."