Upon completion of the transaction, 724 Solutions shareholders will own approximately 68 percent of the combined company and Tantau shareholders the remaining 32 percent. The transaction is expected to close during the first quarter of 2001.

Founded by a core team from Tandem's High Performance Research Centre with experience in building high-scale mission critical transaction based systems, Tantau Software is a privately held company which enables enterprises to conduct high volume, secure mobile transactions. Tantau's current customers are primarily blue chip financial services institutions, including Chase Manhattan Bank, Commerzbank, Credit Suisse Group, MeritaNordbanken, the New Zealand Stock Exchange, Rabobank International, and SE Banken.

Headquartered in Austin, Texas, the company has a total of 175 employees in sales and development offices throughout Europe, the United States, Australia, and Japan, with significant engineering operations in Germany, Switzerland and Finland. Investors in Tantau include Compaq, Chase Capital Partners and General Motors Investment Management.

724 Solutions says the acquistion will enhance its position as a global provider of scalable infrastructure and application software for secure mobile transactions. Tantau's established presence in Europe complements 724 Solutions' strong customer base in North America, which includes BBVA Bancomer, Bank of America, Bank of Montreal, ClarityBank.com, Citigroup, Hanvit Bank, KeyCorp, Wachovia and Wells Fargo. The companies' combined customers serve approximately 272 million consumers worldwide.

Greg Wolfond, founder, current chairman and chief executive officer of 724 Solutions, will continue as chairman of the company. Tantau co-founder, president and chief executive officer John Sims will serve as CEO of the combined enterprise.

"With very little overlap between our companies, we expect a seamless integration," says Sims.