James P. Smith of Wells Fargo Joins FSTC Board of Directors

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 14, 2005--The Financial Services Technology Consortium (FSTC) today announced that James P. Smith, Executive Vice President and Head of the Consumer Internet Channel for Well Fargo & Company has joined its Board of Directors. Along with the board's other ten members, Mr. Smith will provide strategic oversight and direction to FSTC.

"We are delighted that an industry leader such as Jim has decided to join our board as we continue to address the issues so critical to the future of the financial services industry," said Donald Parker, SVP of Comerica Bank and Chairman of the Board, FSTC. "Jim's particular expertise in consumer banking and Internet technologies will be a tremendous asset to FSTC. We enthusiastically welcome him to our board."

“Jim's particular expertise in consumer banking and Internet technologies will be a tremendous asset to FSTC. We enthusiastically welcome him to our board.”

FSTC is currently engaged in a critical set of project and other activities in vital industry spaces including business continuity, check imaging and truncation, and authentication and identity management.

"The work that FSTC is involved in is extremely important to the financial services community as a whole," said Smith, "I am honored to be associated with an organization that not only provides a forum for industry leaders to exchange ideas, but also to identify and incubate solutions to the industry's most pressing problems."

Mr. Smith is currently Executive Vice President and Head of the Consumer Internet Channel for Wells Fargo. In this role, Jim is responsible for developing consumer Internet product strategy, managing the Internet channel and platforms, building consumer Internet banking, payments, and investment businesses, and managing Internet development projects.

Jim has been involved with Wells Fargo's Internet initiatives since their inception in 1994 and has seen their offerings grow from their first website to the current multi-product, multi-platform offering supporting a base of more than 6.5 million active online customers.

Jim began his career at Wells Fargo in 1994 as part of the Consumer Services Management Training program. He has held several roles at Wells Fargo including Product Manager for Bill Pay, Manager of Business Planning/Analysis, and Senior Product Strategist for Online Financial Services. Prior to joining Wells Fargo, Jim was a consultant with American Management Systems and also worked for First Virginia Bank. Jim holds an MBA in Strategy & Marketing from the University of Texas at Austin and a bachelor's degree in history from the College of William & Mary.

About FSTC

FSTC is a financial industry research organization comprising banks, financial service firms, industry partners, national laboratories, universities and government agencies. Its goal is to bring forward interoperable, open-standard technologies for the financial services industry that make possible new products and services. FSTC projects push the envelope of financial services technology, focusing on areas where industry collaboration is possible, and needed, to enable new products, reduce costs and risk, or expand market reach. FSTC provides a unique forum for financial institutions and vendors to work together on taking ideas from concept to pilot to the marketplace. For more information, visit http://www.fstc.org/.