NW_20010116_en_VASCO Opens Office in Paris to Accelerate Sales in High-Growth Security and Smart Card Market

OAKBROOK TERRACE, Ill. and BRUSSELS, Belgium – January 10, 2001 – US-based VASCO (NASDAQ & EASDAQ: VDSI; www.vasco.com), a global provider of security solutions that enable e-business and e-commerce, further strengthened its European sales channels as it announced the opening of a sales office in Paris, France. Following the recent opening of VASCO's Singapore office, the Company continues to expand its worldwide presence to provide local service and support to its customers and partners, and to drive new business from the world’s fastest-growing economies.

VASCO expects its Paris office to accelerate sales of its security products to banks, corporations, and government agencies in France, one of the world’s largest and most dynamic economies. The Company will further build on a customer base that includes leading French companies such as BNP Paribas, Cedicam, and Axytrans. In addition, VASCO’s local operations in France will help it expand its already considerable partner and reseller channel, adding to leading companies such as 2B+D, Diagram, and Telindus France.

With one of the world’s largest install bases of smart cards, France is also expected to be a key market for VASCO’s new Digipass 800. As a fully portable and intelligent and secure smart card reader, the Digipass 800 combines with a bank customer’s smart card to form a unique and secure electronic identity that can be used from any browser-equipped computer, phone, or personal digital assistant, expanding a smart card’s capabilities and allowing banks to market additional services to its smart card holders. Rabobank in the Netherlands recently placed an initial order for three hundred thousand Digipass 800, and has stated that it will market the Digipass 800 to its entire install base of six million smart card holders.

“France has long been the world’s leading adopter of smart card technology,” said Jan Valcke, Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing for VASCO. “We expect to capitalize on the level of smart card deployment in France with our Digipass 800, as well as to expand sales for our entire Digipass family of strong authentication and digital signature platforms. A local presence in Paris will build on our success with our established partners and resellers in France while helping us expand our channel partner initiative in an important, fast-growing region."

About VASCO
VASCO secures the enterprise from the mainframe to the Internet with infrastructure solutions that enable secure e-business and e-commerce, protect sensitive information, and safeguard the identity of users. The company's family of Digipass® and SnareWorks® products offers end-to-end security through strong authentication and digital signature, true Single Sign-On, access control and advanced entitlements, web portal security, and PKI enablement, while sharply reducing the time and effort required to deploy and manage security. VASCO's customers include hundreds of financial institutions, blue-chip corporations, and government agencies in more than 50 countries, among them ABN AMRO Bank, Shell, 3M, Ericsson, Rabobank, SEB, First Union, Liberty Mutual, Cable and Wireless, Nokia, DaimlerChrysler, Volvo, US Department of Defense, European Commission, US Coast Guard, University of Groningen, and Duke University. VASCO's partners include Brokat, Check Point Software Technologies, Computer Associates, Intel,
Netlife, Novell, Proton World, and Ubizen. More information is available at www.vasco.com.

Forward Looking Statements
Statements made in this news release that relate to future plans, events or performances are forward-looking statements. Any statement containing words such as “believes,” “anticipates,” “plans,” “expects,” and similar words, is forward-looking, and these statements involve risks and uncertainties and are based on current expectations. Consequently, actual results could differ materially from the expectations expressed in these forward-looking
statements.

Reference is made to the Company's public filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission for further information regarding the Company and its operations.

For more information contact:

Americas:
Media: Kerry Roche
Bridgeman Communications
+1 617 742 7270,
[email protected]

Investor Relations: Todd Fromer
KCSA Public Relations Worldwide
+1 212 682 6300
[email protected]

VASCO: Mike Lange
+1 630 932 8844
[email protected]

Europe/Asia:
Media (Benelux): Nico Tempelaere
Outsource
+32 2 361 31 20
[email protected]

Media (Europe/Asia): Sven Kersten
HBI
+49 89 99 38 87 33,
[email protected]

Investor Relations: Annemieke Blondeel
LBConsult
+44 208 308 7080
[email protected]

VASCO: Ariane Bosmans
+32 2 456 9810
[email protected]