WHITE PLAINS, NY—April 26, 2004—Communicator Inc, a provider of identity management and secure electronic communication solutions for the extended enterprise, has significantly enhanced Compliance Hub(SM), the central service for compliance information management in the financial industry. Today it is announcing Wachovia Securities as a new customer for their Qualified Institutional Buyer (QIB) service, as well as integration of that service into i-Deal's syndicate platform. Communicator also has added an Equity IPO Eligibility service to Compliance Hub that helps customers comply with NASD Rule 2790. The enhancements extend Communicator’s ability to help broker-dealers reduce the risks and costs of maintaining accurate information for regulatory compliance.

Today’s financial services compliance requirements are fundamentally about securely managing information regarding the legal status, transaction authorizations, account identifiers, employee roles and related documentation about customers and service providers. Many broker-dealers currently use a highly manual approach to collect this identity-based information and manage know-your-customer certifications. This includes requesting information from institutional investors and then verifying, storing and entering it into internal data systems, sometimes multiple times. Since certifications need to be renewed on a regular basis, this is an ongoing process that consumes considerable time and cost.

Communicator Inc’s Compliance Hub is the financial industry's central service for firms to securely manage and share identity-based compliance information with clients, service providers such as broker-dealers, and regulatory agencies. Built on Hub ID, Communicator’s proven and reliable identity management technology, Compliance Hub helps free staff from time-consuming manual and non-standard processes while enabling firms to better manage the risks and costs of today’s and tomorrow’s identity-related compliance requirements. Compliance Hub currently manages over 2.5 million attributes from 400,000 identities across 2,500 companies with whom Communicator maintains ongoing relationships.

“In this era of know-your-customer, compliance certification is a natural extension to Communicator’s customer verification platform,” observes Michael Haney, senior analyst with research and advisory firm Celent. “By leveraging its leadership position in identity management, Communicator allows investment firms to focus on their core competencies while still satisfying their compliance requirements. Communicator can no longer be seen as simply a provider of leading technology. It has significantly increased its value to the investment community by becoming a trusted supplier of valuable reference data.”

New Customer for Compliance Hub's QIB Service

SEC Rule 144A regulates privately-placed securities, which are relatively sophisticated and associated with less explanatory documentation than publicly-placed offerings. Before marketing or selling 144A securities, broker-dealers must verify that customers—including investment management firms, banks, insurance companies and employee benefit plans—are designated Qualified Institutional Buyers. This can be accomplished either through research about the investment firm or through the collection of a confirmation letter from them.

Traditionally, QIB letter collection and use has been a manual, inconsistent and often redundant information-recording process prone to high error rates, risk and cost. The Compliance Hub platform supports QIB certification management by completely maintaining the infrastructure and processes required to solicit, renew, store and maintain QIB letters from customers, ensuring round-the-clock availability of continuously updated information.

Wachovia Securities recently integrated Communicator's QIB service into its compliance processes. "We evaluated the available solutions and chose Communicator's QIB service because of their solid coverage of buy-side accounts and dedicated outreach and customer service team to acquire new QIB confirmation letters,” said Dave Nielsen, managing director and chief operating officer in the firm’s Fixed Income Division. “Because the service addresses all aspects of QIB letter management, including technology integration, we are now well positioned to make our compliance processes more efficient."

i-Deal Integrates Compliance Hub’s QIB Certification Management

Up-to-date QIB status information is necessary for all transaction and customer relationship applications that support 144A deals. One such application is i-Deal's syndicate platform for the global equity, debt and municipal markets. i-Deal is a financial services software company that uses innovative technology to deliver workflow solutions to the global syndicate market. By increasing efficiency, i-Deal enhances the dissemination of information and enables all participants to consolidate information from multiple sources onto a single, state-of-the-art platform.

Previously i-Deal customers participating in 144A transactions needed to solicit, collect and verify QIB information themselves. Going forward, Compliance Hub’s comprehensive QIB service will be integrated seamlessly into i-Deal’s equity and fixed income applications as a real-time information feed and coordinated service. i-Deal customers now will be able to confirm QIB status or acquire new QIB letters directly within the application they use to conduct critical business.

“i-Deal is always exploring opportunities to deliver the best information and most efficient ways to help customers in their securities transactions. As compliance concerns grow, it becomes more critical for broker-dealers to have trusted information at their fingertips,” said Frank LaQuinta, managing director at i-Deal. “We looked at many options for collecting QIB information, including other alternatives in the market and managing the process in-house. What we found was that Communicator Inc already had built the most comprehensive method for maintaining compliance certifications and integrating the data into existing applications. Partnering with Communicator allows i-Deal to offer the capital markets best-of-breed workflow and compliance services in one integrated solution.”

Compliance Hub Adds Equity IPO Eligibility Service

In October 2003, the Securities and Exchange Commission approved NASD Rule 2790, which puts restrictions on the purchase and sale of equity IPOs. The rule is intended to control the distribution of IPO shares to institutions and individuals with a special relationship to a broker-dealer. It requires that NASD members, before selling a new equity issue to any account, obtain an affirmation letter from their account holders confirming eligibility. As of March 2004, all NASD members and associated persons are required to comply with Rule 2790.

This tight compliance deadline fueled customer demand for Communicator Inc to add support for Rule 2790 to Compliance Hub. The service’s flexibility and built-in processes for requesting, verifying, tracking and publishing identity-based data for a variety of industry regulations allowed Communicator to add eligibility forms specific to Rule 2790 and deploy the solution in just three weeks.

Customers of Compliance Hub’s support for Rule 2790 will benefit from special features that include: collection of information specific to an investment firm’s/broker-dealer’s relationship; built-in approval workflow and audit trail to demonstrate dealers’ independent due diligence as required by the regulation; and reduction in the number of last minute requests for updates and renewals at no cost to investors. In addition, Compliance Hub gives broker-dealers who opt not to perform their own review/approval of eligibility affirmations the ability to search through affirmations Communicator has collected and stored in the Compliance Hub database.

How Compliance Hub Works

Communicator Inc handles every aspect of the certification process, from soliciting and collecting compliance letters and renewal information from buy-side clients to validating, scanning and adding the letters to the Compliance Hub database. Continual information collection and renewal processes ensure that the most up-to-date and accurate information is always available to registered broker-dealers either through a Web-based Compliance Hub interface or integrated directly into their internal CRM, trading or settlement systems. Buy-side clients are able to quickly, easily and at no cost submit and update information via a Web interface. Easy-to-use administration tools allow broker-dealers to track the status of verification data at every step in the certification process.

Availability

The QIB and Equity IPO Eligibility services are now available as part of Communicator Inc’s Compliance Hub platform. There is no cost for buy-side, institutional investment firms to participate in the service. A range of service packages are available to broker-dealers.

i-Deal and Communicator have commenced joint sales of the coordinated syndicate and compliance platform. For more information, contact Communicator at (914) 872-2800, info@communicator.com or visit www.compliancehub.com.

About Communicator Inc
Communicator Inc provides identity management and secure electronic communications solutions for the extended enterprise––across divisions, organizations, locations and time zones. The company’s identity management, business connectivity/collaboration and information exchange services can be used either individually or combined to create industry-specific solutions for financial services, the public sector and other highly regulated markets. The results are faster collaborative decisions, stronger relationships and reduced operational costs. Communicator is a privately held company headquartered in White Plains, New York. For more information, visit www.communicator.com, call (914) 872-2800 or email info@communicator.com.