As one of the 21 "bankers banks" in the United States chartered specifically to serve the needs of community financial institutions, The Bankers Bank has more than $1.9 billion in assets, 280 employees, and a customer base of more than 1,100 community financial institutions. Under the agreement, The Bankers Bank will implement the HORIZON core processing solution, as well as ACquire for enterprise document management and ALLink, a middleware solution that will enable The Bankers Bank to interface existing ancillary solutions to the HORIZON platform. A comprehensive and completely integrated solution, HORIZON will position The Bankers Bank to achieve greater efficiencies through process automation and workflow improvements while delivering superior service to its rapidly growing base of community bank clients.

"Our vision is to be a $3+ billion institution by 2008, recognized for the range of superior products and services we offer to our customer institutions," said Tom Bryan, president and chief executive officer for The Bankers Bank. "We believe that HORIZON has the breadth and depth of functionality - especially as it relates to its robust lending capabilities - we need to fully serve our bankers' needs and to successfully position our organization for this type of growth. And our long-standing relationship with Fidelity, together with our mutual commitment to providing products and services that help community banks compete and thrive, served only to validate our decision."

The HORIZON Banking System, which runs on the IBM iSeries platform, is a fully integrated solution that incorporates sophisticated general ledger, transaction processing, relationship management, and deposit and loan management capabilities, as well as a service management module that allows banks to handle tax reporting, security, the generation of reports and document imaging. The Bankers Bank will use HORIZON on an outsourced basis, with the data being processed in Fidelity's Albany, New York data center. The implementation is scheduled for completion in the fourth quarter of 2005.

The Bankers Bank of Atlanta represents the fifth bankers bank to choose a Fidelity solution, with three running on Fidelity's BancLine solution and another running on Fidelity's BancPac solution.

"The Bankers Bank evaluated several Fidelity solutions, comparing features, functionality and overall suitability for their specific needs," said Jim Susoreny, executive vice president for Fidelity's Integrated Financial Solutions division. "Our goal has long been to offer multiple solutions to meet the technology needs of any financial institution, no matter how large or small or how unique their requirements. The fact that The Bankers Bank had more than one choice under serious consideration underscores the viability of our strategy."