NW_20020711_en_VASCO Continues its Growing Success in the Corporate Access Market by Partnering with STS/BUSINESSONE in the Middle East and Northern Africa

OAKBROOK TERRACE, Ill., BRUSSELS, Belgium and AMMAN, Jordan -- July 11, 2002 -- VASCO Data Security International (Nasdaq NM & Nasdaq Europe:VDSI: www.vasco.com), a global provider of enterprise-wide security products that support e-business, and BUSINESSONE, an STS Company, (www.B1ME.com) a regional provider of e-Business solutions and services, today announced that they have joined forces in order to offer VASCO’s cutting edge Digipass and VACMAN product families to the Middle Eastern market. STS/BUSINESSONE ’s Amman office recently became the first certified VASCO Training Center in the region.

The presence of STS in Amman and STS/BUSINESSONE in Dubai is of a huge strategic importance for VASCO. Both cities are very rapidly evolving towards the status of commercial capitals of their region. Additionally, STS group, including BUSINESSONE, is certified by leading worldwide companies, including Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, Dell, Avaya Communications, Nortel Networks, Hypercom, Corning Cable Systems, Foundry Networks, Vignette, Argus Systems, Commerce One, IBM Software, and Altitude Software. This impressive combination of assets makes STS/BUSINESSONE the ideal VASCO-partner to tackle the Middle East, with a special focus on banking, corporate networking and e-government, three sectors in which STS/BUSINESSONE has a lot of experience and can boast several customers. In addition to this, STS/BUSINESSONE recently signed several agreements with Northern African partners, resulting in a significantly increased potential market and territory covered.

The synergies created by the partnership between VASCO and STS/BUSINESSONE will be beneficial for the Middle East region, with its strongly developed corporate banking infrastructure and its rapidly growing e-commerce and e-business environment, as is evident from the wide growth of IT companies and IT users in the Region. More and more, securing the trust and the value of customers, be it in a banking environment or in other business environments, is a condition to generate more revenue. Now, companies and governments in the Middle East will not only have at their disposal the combination of VASCO’s top notch products and its expertise with over 170 banks and over 600 companies worldwide as customers, but also first class local support in the regional language, highly skilled STS/BUSINESSONE professionals and great training programs.

"We are very glad to partner with STS/BUSINESSONE. This action reflects the further development and implementation of VASCO’s indirect sales strategy, already creating a growing recurrent revenue stream for our Digipass/VACMAN products in the corporate access environment, in addition to our traditional banking market," said Jan Valcke, VASCO’s Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing. "STS shares with VASCO its market vision and its scrupulous attention to quality and service. VASCO and STS/BUSINESSONE are convinced that together we will create great added value for our customers and prospects in the Middle East as well as for both companies."

"Our long experience in the IT market coupled with our true belief in its Technology leadership in the IT security industry makes us very proud today to announce jointly with VASCO this new partnership which we believe will both be fruitful and conducive to the advanced IT market in Jordan," said Amjad Rahhal - BUSINESSONE – Chief Operations Officer (COO).




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 VACMAN® products offers end-to-end security through strong authentication, digital signature, network Single Sign-On, and Radius, LAN and Web security, 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. More information is available at www.vasco.com.

About STS
STS is a progressive company, successfully delivering the highest of quality information technology solutions since 1989. Today, STS Group comprises of four companies; all adhering to the original standards of quality and service created and strongly adhered to by STS. Our companies are: BTech, BUSINESSONE, CompuNet, and IPS.
STS group is based in Amman- Jordan with a branch office in Ramallah-Palestine and BUSINESSONE'S Headquarters in Dubai Internet City- UAE. STS is staffed by more than 110 IT & business professionals, with the expertise to meet the business objectives of large corporations, banks, telcos and government institutions.

About BUSINESSONE
Having offices in two of the major IT centers of excellence in the Region, Dubai and Amman and empowered with strategic partnerships with Regional and International companies in the IT Sector, BUSINESSONE, STS’ e-Business arm (www.businessoneme.com/www.b1me.com) stands on firm grounds among the best providers of e-Solutions in the Middle East. BUSINESSONE's paramount concern is to focus on supplying customized offerings to its customers, from distinct modules to turnkey e-systems, in an open, secure and adaptable environment. BUSINESSONE specializes in offering interoperable, flexible and secure software modules that can be easily tailored to specific customer needs. Our solutions are differentiated in terms of flexibility and scope. Our Professional services team are intensively trained professionals Certified on standard technology, as well as, being certified by our vendor companies to deliver System integration, Consultancy, Specialized training implementation, Application Architecture and Design, as well as, Software Development. They follow a meticulous and elaborate Project Management and Software development Methodology. This applied methodology ensures getting the work done on time, according to the highest standards and adhering to Quality Assurance in both standards and methodology.
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:

VASCO:
Jochem Binst, +32 2 456 9810, [email protected]

BUSINESSONE
Media:
Bishr Al-Madani +96265802626 (ext. 176), [email protected]
Investor Relations:
Nidal Al-Basha +96265802626 (ext. 179), [email protected]