NW_20011218_en_Leading Czech bank Ceska Sporitelna to use VASCO’s Digipass 700

OAKBROOK TERRACE, Illinois and BRUSSELS, Belgium – December 18, 2001 – VASCO (Nasdaq NM & Nasdaq Europe: VDSI; www.vasco.com), a global provider of enterprise-wide security products that support e-business and e-commerce, announced today that the largest bank in the Czech Republic, Èeská spoøitelna (CS), will offer Digipass products to its customers as an e-banking security tool. VASCO closed the deal together with its Czech partners DNS and A&&L soft. In total, Èeská spoøitelna orders 50,000 units of Digipass 700, an addition to the
10,000 Digipass devices already in use by the bank’s customers. VASCO’s Digipass product line stands for safe transactions via phone or Internet, generating unique dynamic passwords and digital signatures, which protect the information the user wants to send and the access to the users’ personal files.

“We are thrilled to have Èeská spoøitelna as a customer” said Jan Valcke, VASCO’s Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing. “The Czech Republic is an important growth market to VASCO. The fact that the leading Czech bank Èeská spoøitelna has chosen us to protect their customers’ e-banking, symbolises the further reinforcement of our leadership in the financial sector. We want to underline the important role our local partners A&&L soft and DNS have in this success. VASCO’s partner network is an invaluable asset to our company. Their knowledge of the local market combined with the our top notch products, prove once again to be a very powerful tool to win new markets and to expand our leadership position.”

“VASCO was the right choice for Èeská spoøitelna“ said Aleš Mamica, Remote Service Unit head at Èeská spoøitelna “Digipass is an important part of our new e-banking system, offering authentication security to our customers” he added.

About Digipass 700

With the DIGIPASS® 700, secure network access and complex digital signatures become possible without putting any extra burden on the user.The DIGIPASS® 700 enables network access specialists to bring the overall remote access security to a superior level while building an incredibly flexible, economic and yet user-friendly security infrastructure. They can define several applications, each with the most appropriate settings, just by changing parameters (e.g. PIN length, number of trials, lengths of challenge, concatenated fields).


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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 and digital signature, enterprise Single Sign-On, and LAN 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 Ceska Sporitelna
Èeská spoøitelna – according to the number of clients the largest bank in the Czech Republic – is a member of the strong Central European financial group of Erste Bank since 2000. Èeská spoøitelna is primarily focused on retail clients, on small and medium size enterprises and on municipalities. Èeská spoøitelna, a.s. issued over two million debit cards, administrates networks of 684 branches and over 940 ATMs. Èeská spoøitelna, a.s. was awarded “The Most Trusted Trademark in the Czech Republic”. The bank received the certificate as a result of an international survey European Trusted Brands conducted by Reader´s Digest in autumn 2000 in 18 European countries.

About DNS
DNS s.r.o. is the biggest Value-Added Distributor on the Czech market with estimated turnover 1 billion CZK in 2001. The strategy of DNS is to provide partners with wide portfolio of hardware, networking, communication and software technologies and associated services. These services include not only a high-quality product line but also a high level of customer support. Comprehensive support in the area of IT project solutions contains not only technical, but also financial, marketing and logistics services. DNS distributes products of following companies: IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Compaq, CISCO, Enterasys, Èeský Telecom, Nokia, Netscout, PRO IN, Check Point, Computer Associates, Network Associates, Citrix, IBM Informix, Intrusion, ISS, Vasco, Trend Micro a Stonesoft. Customers will find in product portfolio both traditional products (servers, storage systems, active networking device, etc) and latest solutions for e-business, security, wireless comunication and so on. Company was founded in 1997 and has more than 40 employees. You can find more information on http://www.dns.cz.

About A&&L soft
A && L soft is a premier provider of electronic banking software and services in the Czech republic and Slovakia, specializing in helping businesses grow by offering solutions in remote communications and securing the remote access as well as the entire systems. The company offers to its clients a full range of software, integration, and consulting services to achieve maximum results. Its OfficeLine system provides a complete electronic banking solution, with the benefits for banks of flexibility to configure the system according to the bank’s own work processes and needs; forward adaptability to new technologies; ease of integration with other bank IT systems; and security scaled up through strong encryption and VASCO’s authentication and digital signature technology proven worldwide. More information is available at www.alsoft.cz.

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:
Media:
Jochem Binst, +32 2 456 9810, [email protected]
Investor Relations:
Annemieke Blondeel, Americas +1 630 932 8844, Europe +44 20 8308 7080, [email protected]

DNS - Ing. Blanka Hudeèková, 0042-2-96377412, [email protected]

A&&L soft, Karel Krenzelok,Phone: +420 2 6973320, www.alsoft.cz