More than 1.5 Million College Students and 210 Universities Now Partner with Higher One to Make Life More Convenient for Students

New Haven, CT - Higher One, today announced that 2008 was another strong year for the New Haven-based technology-driven financial services and payment company focused exclusively on higher education. This is Higher One's seventh straight year of record growth.

"Higher One has grown this year by every measure. We serve more students and universities, process more financial transactions and have expanded our workforce," said Dean Hatton, chief executive officer of Higher One. "From customer service representatives to client relationship managers, our people continue to drive Higher One's success."

2008 Results

In July of 2008, the Department of Education released new regulations pertaining to the distribution of Title IV funds. These new guidelines enable institutions of higher education to establish policies requiring students to receive refunds electronically; making companies like Higher One an even more attractive partner to colleges and universities around the country.

Over the course of 2008, Higher One added 51 colleges and universities to its client list, including Antelope Valley College, Central Piedmont Community College, University of Southern Mississippi, and Texas Tech University. The company has maintained a 100% client retention rate and now partners with more than 210 campuses.

Currently more than 8.5% of all college and university students in the United States have access to Higher One's services through their school. Over the course of the year alone, Higher One managed university disbursements totaling $2.33 Billion- a 64%increase from 2007.

Improvements and Enhancements

In 2008, Higher One expanded its payment service to allow universities to collect tuition and fees electronically. Through OnePay, individuals can choose one of three ways to pay for university parking passes, tuition, activity fees and expenses: credit card, e-check/ACH from any bank account or a transfer from a Higher One OneAccount.

Higher One increased its services for students as well, offering new tools to help students learn solid money management skills. Students can receive mobile banking alerts with updates regarding their refund status or account balance via text message. Higher One unveiled Money 101, a monthly financial literacy newsletter with tips and insights about budgeting. Working together with Intuit, Higher One has enabled students to gain access to free personal finance software.

The Market Opportunity

Higher One's business growth in 2008 led to two significant business milestones. In June, Higher One announced that it had acquired the assets of EduCard, LLC, an affiliate of software developer Evisions. As part of the agreement, Higher One established a partnership with Evisions that allows Higher One to integrate its refund management and card services with Evisions' Intellecheck software.

In August, Higher One announced that Lightyear Capital, a private equity firm that focuses on financial services, had invested in the company to become the largest shareholder with a significant minority stake.

"Our services are in increasing demand from universities that want to offer exceptional student service at a lower cost," Hatton said. "This is evident by that fact we have already added more than 100,000 students on 46 campuses in the first month of 2009. This unprecedented start will help fuel Higher One's continued growth in the coming year."


About Higher One:

Founded in 2000, Higher One provides higher education institutions and their students with efficient, convenient and easy-to-use solutions to handle financial disbursements. These include: student refunds, on-campus and community purchases, payroll and employee expenses, as well as the collection of payments from students, parents, and sponsors.

Higher One offers a suite of online banking services including the OneAccount, an FDIC-Insured checking account, and OneCard, a Debit MasterCard(R). To date, Higher One has disbursed over $7 billion dollars in refunds for its clients to more than 1.5 Million students, faculty, and staff at over 260 distinguished public and private higher education institutions throughout the country. Higher One recently ranked #79 on the 2009 Fast 500 list of the 500 Fastest Growing Technology Companies in the United States. Higher One is based in New Haven, CT.

Former Softscape, Inc. Executive Brings 20 Years Experience in Sales Management

Waltham, Mass. - OpenPages(R), the leading provider of enterprise GRC management solutions that optimize business performance, is pleased to announce that Matt Park has joined the company as vice president of worldwide sales. As leader of the OpenPages sales team, Park will work with the team to further drive the company's momentum and customer traction in the enterprise GRC market. Park is a seasoned sales executive with 20 years experience in driving strategic direction and sales growth for a variety of software companies.

Prior to joining OpenPages, Park was the senior vice president of Softscape, Inc. where he was responsible for managing global sales efforts, resulting in sales growth of over 500% during the past five years. He also assisted in the development of the company's sales strategy and processes. Previously, Park served as the vice president of sales and marketing at Human Asset Technologies where he managed the direct and channel sales for mid-to-large size companies. There, Park successfully launched a new ASP product into the market, closed deals with over 20 companies and forged strategic partnerships with reseller and consulting companies. He has also served as senior vice president of sales at Quadstone, Inc., director of worldwide sales - high seas division at Raytheon Marine Co., and director of channel sales at Factpoint.

"I am excited about joining the OpenPages sales team and driving the company to the next level of growth and success," said Park. "OpenPages provides a unique opportunity to work for the recognized market leader in a time when the need for GRC management has never been greater. With the company's extremely strong management and sales team as support, I look forward to jumping in and continuing the company's momentum in 2009 and beyond."

"Matt will be an invaluable asset to drive market adoption of OpenPages solutions moving forward," said OpenPages president and CEO Michael J. Duffy. "Matt's extensive knowledge of sales and management coupled with his strong track record in driving substantial revenue growth make him the ideal addition to our team."


About OpenPages

OpenPages is the leading provider of enterprise GRC management solutions that optimize business performance. OpenPages empowers the world's largest companies by unifying governance, risk and compliance (GRC) activities across the enterprise and by incorporating risk management into their day-to-day business processes. Founded in 1996, the company is headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts, with international offices in Japan and the United Kingdom, and regional offices throughout North America.

NEWTON, Mass. - SimpleTuition, Inc. (www.SimpleTuition.com) has closed $6 million in Series C financing from Atlas Venture, Flybridge Capital Partners, and North Hill Ventures. The company plans to use the funding for continued development of its award-winning site, SimpleTuition.com, as well as for expansion of its innovative loan comparison service.

The leading student loan comparison site for personalized student loan research, SimpleTuition.com connects students and parents to top student loan lenders. The site's interactive approach to researching, comparing and selecting federal and private student loans helps borrowers make informed decisions about borrowing options. More than 1.5 million families turned to SimpleTuition.com in 2008 to search for personalized information on student loans, resulting in more than 750,000 highly-qualified leads to lenders.

"SimpleTuition has established itself as a leader in enabling families to access student loans during a time of tremendous market turmoil. They are well-positioned to help the millions of families seeking college loan products in the years ahead," said Jeff Bussgang, general partner at Flybridge Capital Partners.

"This is going to be a challenging year for families paying for college, as the availability of some traditional sources of financing is still up in the air," said Kevin Walker, co-founder and CEO of SimpleTuition. "We are pleased that SimpleTuition is a go-to resource for loan options that are still available. We have thrived throughout the credit crunch because lenders know that we deliver the best quality prospective borrowers outside the financial aid office itself."

"With our expertise in user experience, supplier management and analytics," Walker continued, "we look forward to developing new ways to help people make smart financial decisions in a very troubled market."


About SimpleTuition, Inc.

SimpleTuition is the leading education loan comparison company for personalized student loan research. Dedicated to helping students and parents make sense of education financing options, SimpleTuition.com is an independent and interactive solution for researching and comparing multiple Stafford, private, PLUS, and GradPLUS loans from dozens of lenders. Recently named Best Financial Services Site by Kiplinger's, SimpleTuition is headquartered in Newton, Mass., and is funded by Atlas Venture, Flybridge Capital Partners, and North Hill Ventures. For more information, visit SimpleTuition.com.

Global Brokerage Firm Deploys FIX on TMX for High-Volume, Low-Latency Trading and Market Feed Capabilities

NEW YORK, - Tervela, the leading provider of high-performance, low-latency messaging systems, and FIX Flyer, an innovator in trading solutions for electronic trading, today announced the first joint production customer for FIX on TMX, an integrated high-performance order routing platform. The customer, an international brokerage firm that provides liquidity to global equity markets, has deployed the platform to provide a single point of management for mission-critical, high-speed electronic trading. FIX on TMX combines FIX Flyer's Engine and Daytona Monitoring Framework with the Tervela Message Network(TM).

Powered by Tervela's core message switches, FIX on TMX offers the firm:

-Predictable, market-leading order processing with verifiable service level agreements

-Complete visibility into the entire order flow with full operational performance metrics and integrated, real-time monitoring on both the messaging and business level

-Comprehensive high-availability and built-in redundancy to ensure non-stop service during increasing periods of market volatility

-Rich capabilities and support for future service offerings without the need for re-architecture

-Compelling reductions in TCO compared with disparate, larger-footprint order processing platforms

"In today's volatile markets, brokerage firms are seeing order flow and liquidity being threatened. As such, they are actively seeking new ways to improve service, increase 'stickiness' and remain competitive," said Barry Thompson, CTO and Co-Founder, Tervela. "Adding new functionality such as algorithms or more asset classes is much easier on this platform. Our integration with FIX Flyer gives customers built-in redundancy, deterministic order routing latencies and ensured non-stop service without requiring additional infrastructure investment."

With rules-based logic for trading and back office processing, automated data order processing and high-speed APIs, the integrated platform provides an intelligently architected approach to electronic trading and order routing. Additional capabilities include topic configuration, protocol transformation and normalization and multicast assignment. Traders at the global firm have the ability to safely handle unforeseen spikes in volume during volatile markets and experience increased operational efficiencies from consolidating systems and network connections into a single managed strategy.

"Global brokerage firms trade multiple assets across many different geographies, which taxes their trading architectures in very specific ways," said George Kledaras, Chairman and Co-Founder, FIX Flyer. "FIX on TMX was designed to deal with the demanding performance requirements, heavy dependence on messaging and unique operational challenges they deal with every day. Unlike the legacy, software-based systems that many brokerage firms have, we are working with Tervela to deliver unparalleled speed, continuous stability, enterprise scalability and state of the art monitoring so they can overcome these challenges."

FIX Flyer is a charter member of the Tervela Advantage Partner Program (TAPP), an ecosystem of integrated partner solutions that extend and amplify the Tervela Message Network to ensure that financial services firms maintain competitive advantage with their high-performance trading infrastructures.


About Tervela

Founded in 2004, Tervela delivers the next-generation communications infrastructure - the message network - designed and engineered to exceed the information dissemination and processing requirements of the world's most demanding financial services institutions. Addressing the challenges of market volume, volatility and visibility, Tervela invented the message switch to enable investment banks, hedge funds, exchanges and other data-intensive organizations to deliver consistent, outstanding and predictable performance - even in the most demanding market conditions. The company is funded by Goldman Sachs, Sigma Partners, Acartha Group and North Hill Ventures. For more information, please visit www.tervela.com.

About FIX Flyer

Based in Tribeca, New York City, FIX Flyer develops advanced technology for managing complex, multi-asset, institutional securities trading using highly scalable internet networks and technologies. FIX Flyer provides Managed FIX services, FIX engine agnostic monitoring, web based reporting and surveillance, certification and testing tools, zero-install and fully hosted web applications to manage trading and fund allocations for a new breed of portfolio managers. The Flyer Engine is the first FIX server designed to manage high volume, ultra-low latency trading networks and ECNs, easily scaling to thousands of connections. FIX Flyer hosts and partners with Equinix, the leading global provider of network-neutral data center and interconnection services. Visit www.fixflyer.com for company information and to download Flyer for a free evaluation. FIX Flyer is a member of the FIX Protocol Ltd., the industry-led standards organization.

Boston, MA. - Smart Destinations Inc. the premier provider of unlimited admission attraction passes in North America, did not let a tough year in travel hold it back. The Boston-based company is pleased to announce it ranked 78 on the 2008 Inc. 500 list.

"We are excited about earning a spot on the prestigious annual Inc. 500 list," said Kevin McLaughlin, co-founder and CEO of Smart Destinations. "Not only did we land at #78, but Smart Destinations is the fastest growing travel company on this year's list. It's a fantastic testament to the hard work and dedication of the Smart Destinations team and the support of hundreds of our partners."

Travelers benefit from the savings and convenience of Smart Destinations' award winning products -- the Go Card and Explorer Pass -- which allow consumers to pay a single fee to visit an incredible breadth and depth of museums, tours, zoos, and other attractions. For the attractions, Smart Destinations' advanced technology ensures that customers from across the US and in 25 other countries are seamlessly admitted and accounted for.

"We never could have done it without the close partnerships we have with the hundreds of museums, zoos, tours, and attractions in our network," added Cecilia Dahl, co-founder and President. "A stamp like the Inc. 500 is a terrific reinforcement of our belief that those partnerships combined with our relentless focus on the customer experience is a winning combination."

"If you want to find out which companies are going to change the world, look at the Inc. 500," said Inc. Editor Jane Berentson. "These are the most innovative, dynamic, fast-growing companies in the nation - the ones coming up with solutions to some of our knottiest problems, creating systems that let us conduct business faster and easier, and manufacturing products we soon discover we can't live without. The Inc. 500 list is Inc. magazine's tribute to American business ingenuity and ambition."


About Smart Destinations

Headquartered in Boston, MA with locations throughout North America, Smart Destinations is the premier provider of unlimited admission attraction passes in 15 major North American travel destinations from Oahu to New York City. Smart Destinations' Go Cards and Explorer Passes offer pre-paid access to over 425 museums, attractions, and tours for one fixed price. The combination of savings and convenience has resulted in 94% customer satisfaction as measured by 3rd party research and helped the company rank 78 on the Inc 500 list of fastest growing companies. Distributed through major travel services in 25 countries, corporate HR departments and their vendors, as well as on the Web, Smart Destinations' products are a "trusted companion" for the best a destination has to offer at an unbeatable price point.

New Offering Gives Users Suite of Tools for Analyzing and Mapping Data

Dedham, Mass., -- Metatomix, Inc., a leading provider of semantic solutions to justice and public safety, financial services, manufacturing and life sciences organizations, today announced the introduction of a new a suite of tools designed to analyze and map information found in unstructured textual formats, and integrate that information with structured and semi-structured data using Metatomix's Semantic Middleware Platform. The product, called "Discovery," will provide public sector and commercial customers with the ability to incorporate more diverse data sets for the purpose of a richer 360 degree view of a topic or entity. For markets needing an enhanced view of a criminal or terrorist, a better toolset for E-Discovery in legal markets or real-time analysis of financial filings, Discovery will accelerate those activities.

Discovery will offer an immediate benefit to Metatomix's customers in a variety of markets. Within the justice and public safety sector, the varied content of incident reports, criminal history logs, text descriptions and narratives can be accurately integrated into queries run by state and local officials. Incident reports, used by law enforcement departments across the country to detail officers' daily activities, commonly use free text entry and comments fields to store important information. Previously, only certain elements of these report narratives could be analyzed, often excluding the information contained within the unstructured text.

"The addition of the Discovery suite of tools will firmly position Metatomix as a leader in delivering semantic data-sharing technology to both the government and business sectors," said Metatomix President and CEO Jeff Dickerson. "We believe that this technology will greatly benefit our customers across all markets by offering them the ability to analyze data in formats that were previously inaccessible."

Incorporating Discovery into Metatomix's Criminal Investigation (CI) product will introduce a full suite of text analytics tools capable of sorting and extracting valuable pieces of data from free text-based information sources like incident reports. Using that information, law enforcement officials will be able to identify common themes, such as a rise in traffic accidents at a specific intersection or an elevated number of robberies in a certain neighborhood.

Metatomix's customers in the financial services industry will also benefit greatly with the integration of Discovery. Teams of analysts at leading financial institutions are regularly tasked with sorting through detailed fund prospectuses to identify relevant trends and themes. The information within these documents often requires a significant amount of time to be analyzed and processed. Because the data is unstructured, it is inaccessible using existing search technologies. Using the automated analytic capabilities within the Discovery suite of tools, relevant data is able to be extracted from the documents without the use of human analysts. This data can then be interpreted and applied faster and more efficiently.

The technology behind Discovery was developed by researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) through research funded by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and other government agencies. Originally designed for use within the national security community, Discovery's information analysis technology was licensed by Metatomix to create a new derivative work that will be integrated throughout the company's suite of semantic middleware solutions.

Metatomix's semantic technology intelligently gathers data from existing systems, using a common model to understand how relevant data relates to each other. That knowledge is then leveraged to make decisions and implement actions.


About Metatomix, Inc.

Founded in 2000, Metatomix (www.metatomix.com) is the leading provider of Semantic Middleware solutions to financial services, justice, manufacturing and life sciences organizations. Metatomix solutions integrate data and processes to create a common, contextual understanding across multiple enterprise systems. Using this new understanding in context, Metatomix solutions enable real-time analysis and insights, orchestrating coordinated responses among existing systems to optimize enterprise processes. For more information, visit the Metatomix Web site at http://www.metatomix.com.

MARLBORO, Mass., - Forefield Inc. announces the introduction of iForefield, a new comprehensive dashboard across all Forefield services. iForefield provides advisors with a personalized experience by keeping track of recent searches and recently accessed content, and allows each advisor to select and organize the widgets for their iForefield page. iForefield also aids in content discovery by highlighting the most popular content on the site and featuring new content as it becomes available.

"As our customers have increased their utilization of multiple Forefield services, the need to create a more integrated and unified Forefield experience has also increased," said Brent Delehey, Chief Executive Officer at Forefield. "With the release of iForefield, we've given our customers a comprehensive look across all their Forefield services and are helping them to get the most value out of our platform."

Advisors wishing to learn more about any of Forefield's products can sign up for a free trial at www.forefield.com.


About Forefield Inc.

Established in 1997, Forefield is the foremost provider of real-time sales, education, and client communication solutions for financial institutions and their advisors. Forefield's web-based solutions facilitate the communication of client-centric financial planning knowledge and advice that is current, concise, and compliant. For more information, visit www.forefield.com.

Integrated Solution to Deliver Improved Audit Information, Management Processes for Users

Waltham, Mass., and Riverwoods, Ill., - OpenPages(R), the leading provider of enterprise GRC management solutions that optimize business performance, and CCH a leading supplier of tax, audit and accounting information, software and services today announced a strategic technology and co-marketing agreement, which calls for the organizations to support the integration of OpenPages FCM with CCH TeamMate(R) to provide users with a streamlined approach to managing audit information across the enterprise.

As part of the OpenPages Platform, OpenPages FCM delivers an award-winning approach for managing financial controls compliance through self-assessments, certifications, compliance automation and executive dashboards that provide management with the visibility, control and decision support required to ensure financial reporting compliance and to optimize business performance. CCH TeamMate is the powerful, award winning audit management system that has revolutionized the audit management process.

TeamMate is used by more than 56,000 auditors from more than 1,500 organizations and is the industry standard in Audit Management Systems.

As a result of the cooperation between OpenPages and CCH and the integration of their offerings, customers will realize benefits from:

-Streamlined Interface - Auditors working in TeamMate can pull data directly from OpenPages for a seamless interchange of entity, risk and/or control data.

-Support for File Attachments - With the integrated solution, file attachments can be transferred between OpenPages and TeamMate, which may include both narrative and spreadsheet attachments, which can be version-controlled for use by external auditors.

-Selective Update for Process/Risk/Control Data - Auditors can selectively update process/risk/control data in OpenPages directly from TeamMate.

-Embedded Links - Auditors can leverage supporting links in TeamMate that direct users to OpenPages risk/process/controls.

"We are delighted to continue our long-standing relationship with TeamMate," said Michael Duffy, president and CEO of OpenPages. "TeamMate's ability to increase both the efficiency and productivity of the entire audit process complements our ability to automate the financial controls management lifecycle with OpenPages FCM. We are looking forward to serving our joint customers to help drive enhanced efficiency and productivity in the audit management process."

"CCH TeamMate is very pleased to work with OpenPages in delivering a streamlined solution to businesses. Combined, our two award-winning products will provide joint customers with a best-of-breed, end-to-end solution for managing the audit and assurance process throughout the enterprise," said TeamMate General Manager and Vice President Mike Gowell.


About CCH, a Wolters Kluwer business

CCH, a Wolters Kluwer business (CCHGroup.com) is a leading provider of tax, accounting and audit information, software and services. It has served tax, accounting and business professionals since 1913. Among its market-leading products are The ProSystem fx(R) Office, CorpSystem(R), CCH(R) Tax Research NetWork(TM), Accounting Research Manager(R) and the U.S. Master Tax Guide(R). CCH is based in Riverwoods, Ill. Wolters Kluwer is a leading global information services and publishing company (www.wolterskluwer.com).


About OpenPages

OpenPages is the leading provider of enterprise GRC management solutions that optimize business performance. OpenPages empowers the world's largest companies by unifying governance, risk and compliance (GRC) activities across the enterprise and by incorporating risk management into their day-to-day business processes. Founded in 1996, the company is headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts, with international offices in Japan and the United Kingdom, and regional offices throughout North America.

Honored for 'Standard of Excellence' Awards in Both Education and Financial Services Categories for the Second Consecutive Year

Newton, MA, -- SimpleTuition, Inc., the leading student loan comparison site for personalized student loan research, today announced it has been honored with two Standard of Excellence WebAwards for its website development for the second consecutive year. The SimpleTuition website was recognized in both the education and financial services categories of the Web Marketing Association's annual WebAwards competition where websites compete head to head with other sites within their industry.

Across both the education and financial services categories, SimpleTuition consistently scored 8's and 9's out of 10. In fact, judges complimented the site by saying, "Overall this site is well planned, organized and easy to manage with all of the different options for audiences, and confusion that already exists around the subject matter."

Founded in 1997 to help set a high standard for Internet marketing and development of the best websites on the World Wide Web, the Web Marketing Association's annual WebAward competition is now in its 12th year. The WebAwards is the premier annual website award competition that names the best websites while setting the standard of excellence for all website development. This year nominations were received from 2,400 sites from 45 countries in 96 industry categories. Entries were evaluated on design, copy writing, innovation, content, interactivity, navigation, and use of technology. The competition was judged by a team of independent Internet professionals representing a variety of website development disciplines. Judges included members of the media, advertising executives, site designers, creative directors, corporate marketing executives, content providers and webmasters.

"Our product and engineering team has been working to update and refine the SimpleTuition website to make it easier to use and offer more choices for families looking for student loans," said Kevin Walker, CEO of SimpleTuition, Inc. "The WebAward recognition highlights the dedication and accomplishments of this team, and reinforces the breadth of information available for families in an easy to use format."

SimpleTuition's interactive approach to researching, comparing and selecting federal and private student loans at SimpleTuition.com enables borrowers to make more informed decisions about borrowing options. Detailed information on Stafford, private, certified private, PLUS, and GradPLUS loans from dozens of available top lenders is constantly updated -- a big and valuable challenge in this summer's dynamic financial market environment. Each loan option can be sorted and compared by monthly payment, total cost of the loan, number of payments, fees, and lowest and highest APR. No personally identifiable information or credit scoring is required.


About the Web Marketing Association

The Web Marketing Association is working to create a high standard of excellence for website development and marketing on the Internet. Staffed by volunteers, it is made up of Internet marketing, advertising, PR and design professionals who share an interest in improving the quality of Website development and marketing on the Internet. Since 1997, the Web Marketing Association's annual WebAward Competition has been helping interactive professionals promote themselves, their companies, and their best work to the outside world. Now in its 12th year, the WebAward Competition has become the premier award event for Web developers and marketers worldwide.


About SimpleTuition, Inc.

Founded in 2005, SimpleTuition is the leading education loan comparison site for personalized student loan research. SimpleTuition is dedicated to helping students and parents make sense of education financing options. The company offers the leading independent and interactive solution for researching and comparing multiple Stafford, private, PLUS, and GradPLUS loans from dozens of lenders. SimpleTuition is headquartered in Newton, Mass., and is funded by Atlas Venture, Flybridge Capital Partners, and North Hill Ventures. For more information, visit SimpleTuition.com.

Combined Capabilities Improve Process Expertise in Credit Risk Management

New York, NY and Austin, TX,- Genpact (NYSE: G), a leader in the globalization of services and technology, and a pioneer in managing business processes for companies around the world, and Austin Logistics, a recognized leader in event-based decision management, have combined their complementary operational and analytic capabilities to enable clients around the globe to interact more effectively with their customers. This partnership leverages Genpact's extensive analytics, customer service and collections services with Austin Logistics' innovative event based analytic solutions to provide rapidly deployable customer management solutions that increase revenue while maintaining or even lowering costs.

The Genpact-Austin Logistics partnership will offer solutions that transform data from disparate sources into actionable intelligence implemented within credit and call center applications. Clients will be able to increase sales and collection agent productivity through analytically driven strategies and determination of optimal account level treatments coupled with increased "right party contacts".

"Our clients today are faced with a challenging environment of managing rising delinquencies while containing costs," said Genpact Executive Vice President Tiger Tyagarajan. "Our partnership with Austin Logistics will provide solutions to help our clients increase engagement with their customers, provide significant intra-year payback and still work within their budget and IT constraints."

Rather than replacing existing systems, Austin Logistics' software platform is designed to complement investments in existing technology, enabling quick deployment and rapid ROI. The solutions leverage embedded analytics to make superior and consistent decisions that increase revenue in a cost efficient manner.

"Genpact's global delivery capabilities and process excellence expertise will help us expand the distribution and delivery of our solutions," said Tom Miller, Senior Vice President of Corporate Development for Austin Logistics. "With more than 35,500 associates and 30 delivery centers across nine countries, Genpact further enables Austin Logistics to provide world class support to our clients throughout the geographic markets we serve."


About Genpact

Genpact is a leader in the globalization of services and a pioneer in managing business processes for companies around the world. The company combines process expertise, information technology and analytical capabilities with operational insight and experience in diverse industries to provide a wide range of services using its global delivery platform. Genpact helps companies improve the ways in which they do business by applying Six Sigma and Lean principles plus technology to continuously improve their business processes. Genpact operates service delivery centers in India, China, Hungary, Mexico, the Philippines, the Netherlands, Romania, Spain and the United States. For more info visit www.genpact.com.


About Austin Logistics

Austin Logistics is the leading provider of event-based analytic solutions that increase the profitability of customer interactions. For more than 15 years, Austin Logistics has helped industry leaders optimize interactions throughout the customer life cycle from early customer management through the collection of outstanding debt. Its clients represent many of the world's leading financial services and telecommunications companies, with more than 80 product installations across North America, the United Kingdom and the Asia Pacific region. Austin Logistics leverages proprietary decision support technology to non-intrusively integrate clients' existing infrastructure and provide a complete and measurable return on investment inside a year. For more information, visit www.AustinLogistics.com.

NEW YORK, New York - Lightyear Capital LLC ("Lightyear"), a private equity firm that focuses on financial services, today announced that Lightyear Fund II, L.P. has signed a definitive agreement to make a significant investment in Higher One Holdings, Inc. ("Higher One" or the "Company"), a technology-driven financial services company serving higher education. Lightyear's investment in Higher One is part of a leveraged recapitalization through which the Company will repurchase shares from existing investors. Lightyear will become Higher One’s largest shareholder with a significant minority stake.

Higher One provides electronic financial disbursement and payment solutions for universities and their students that save the time and expense associated with handling financial aid refunds, on-campus and community purchases, payment collections, and more. The Company also offers a suite of online banking and debit card services to university students. Founded in 2000 by three Yale students, Higher One today serves roughly 185 schools with 1.5 million students. Growing demand for Higher One's solutions resulted in the Company's being ranked 85th on the 2007 Inc. list of the 500 fastest growing private companies in America.

"Higher One provides Lightyear with a strategic investment opportunity in a high-growth area of the payments processing industry," said Donald B. Marron, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Lightyear. "Higher One represents a classic Lightyear investment: we have identified a strong, talented management team running a unique technology-focused business that is supported by long-term growth trends, including the continuing shift toward electronic payments and the use of debit cards."

Mark F. Vassallo, Managing Director of Lightyear, added, "Lightyear has been targeting investments in the payments sector as part of our strategy of identifying niche growth companies where technology is integral to the delivery of innovative financial products and services. With our history of investing in higher education and financial technology, our investment in Higher One is a perfect fit with this strategy."

Stewart Gross, Managing Director of Lightyear, who will join Higher One's board in connection with the transaction, added, "Higher One has developed a distinctive, proven business model with visible, stable, and predictable revenue streams. Higher One's scalable operating platform will produce increasing profit margins as the business grows. We have tremendous confidence in the Higher One management team and look forward to supporting them as we partner with the Company to achieve its next phase of growth."

"Lightyear is an ideal investment partner for Higher One," said Dean Hatton, Chief Executive Officer of Higher One. "We knew we needed to provide some of our early shareholders an exit strategy, and we wanted to secure a strong capital partner to support the enormous growth of our business. Lightyear's strategic management capabilities and knowledge of both the higher education industry and the financial technology sector will be invaluable in building Higher One into an even more impactful player in serving universities and their students."

Lightyear's legal counsel was Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP. Higher One's financial advisor was Banc of America Securities LLC, with legal counsel from Wiggin and Dana LLP.


About Lightyear Capital:

Lightyear is a private equity investment firm providing buyout and growth capital to companies in the financial services industry. Based in New York, Lightyear, through its affiliated funds, has managed approximately $3 billion of committed capital with investments across the financial services spectrum, including asset management, banking, brokerage, financial technology, insurance, leasing, related business services, and other sectors within financial services. Lightyear brings unique strengths and discipline to its investment process, as well as operating, transaction, and strategic management experience, along with significant contacts and resources beyond capital. The senior team of professionals each has approximately 25 years of financial services-related experience and includes Chris Casciato, David Cynn, David Glenn, Stewart Gross, Thierry Ho, Donald Marron, Richard Sterne, and Mark Vassallo. For more information, please visit www.lycap.com.


About Higher One:

Founded in 2000, Higher One provides higher education institutions and their students with efficient, convenient and easy-to-use solutions to handle financial disbursements. These include: student refunds, on-campus and community purchases, payroll and employee expenses, as well as the collection of payments from students, parents, and sponsors.

Higher One offers a suite of online banking services including the OneAccount, an FDIC-insured checking account, and OneCard, a Debit MasterCard(R). To date, Higher One has disbursed over $4.65 billion in refunds for its clients to more than 2,000,000 students, faculty, and staff at distinguished public and private higher education institutions throughout the country.

Higher One recently ranked 85 on the 2007 Inc. List of the 500 Fastest Growing Companies in the United States. Higher One is based in New Haven, Conn.