TSYS Wins Georgia’s Oglethorpe Award for Performance Excellence

First to Win State’s Highest Organizational Honor in Large Business Category

Columbus, Ga., February 9, 1999 – Citing its pursuit of excellence and outstanding overall achievements, Total System Services, Inc.® (TSYS®)(NYSE: "TSS"), has been selected to receive the 1998 Georgia Oglethorpe Award for Performance Excellence.

About the award introduced in 1997, The Honorable Roy E. Barnes, Governor of Georgia, said, "The Georgia Oglethorpe Award, which uses the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award Criteria for Performance Excellence, involves rigorous organizational assessment and is Georgia’s highest level of recognition for organizational performance excellence."

TSYS Chairman of the Board and CEO Richard W. Ussery said, "This award is an affirmation of the hard work and dedication of TSYS team members. Providing the highest level of customer service, being the employer of choice, and creating value for our shareholders are essential components of our corporate culture. We will continue to strive for quality improvements. I’m very proud to be a member of this exceptional team."

TSYS, along with the U.S. Army Infantry School and Center, Fort Benning, GA., will be recognized during the second Georgia Oglethorpe Awards Banquet, to be held March 18, 1999, in Stone Mountain, Georgia.

TSYS’ Winning Attributes/Strengths:

  • Oglethorpe examiners found one of TSYS’ greatest strengths to be its sense of family and teamwork. People Development Exponent (PDE), a strategy for ensuring its values and culture are preserved throughout the company for generations to come. Fortune magazine listed PDE as a primary factor in naming the Synovus family of companies, of which TSYS is the largest entity, as "The Best Company to Work for in America."
  • TSYS has enjoyed strong financial performance since its inception, evidenced by a stock return of two-and-a-half times that of the S&P 500 from 1983 - 1997. TSYS’ financial performance has garnered national recognition from such leading publications as Forbes, Business Week, and Fortune, and was named by Georgia Trend magazine as "The Best Small, Publicly Held Company in Georgia."
  • TSYS has twice received the regional award in the Corporate category from the Georgia Economic Developers Association (GEDA), given to the company from each of the eleven economic development regions that made the greatest economic and/or social contribution to its community.
  • TSYS has also received the statewide GEDA award in the Corporate category for service to existing industry, given to the local economic development group that has the most outstanding existing industry program in the state. Examples of TSYS’ winning initiatives include its partnership with Columbus State University, revitalization and renovation of historic sites, and supporting numerous charities like United Way, Habitat for Humanity, and Meals on Wheels.
  • TSYS and Columbus State University (CSU) have engaged in a joint effort called the Intellectual Capital Partnership Program (ICAPP), designed to help businesses and universities solve business problems with intellectual resources. CSU and TSYS are working together to educate and develop sufficient numbers of mainframe computing professionals. Since the program’s inception in 1990, more than 600 computer professionals educated at CSU have been employed by TSYS.
  • TSYS has an aggressive Year 2000 (Y2K) compliance schedule which has enabled the company to position itself for a larger share of the market, evidenced by the signing of several large clients in 1998, including Sears Roebuck & Co., the world’s largest retailer. TSYS’ premier software system, TS2®, is designed to be Y2K compliant.
  • TSYS is the only third-party processor with clients who were successful contenders for the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) contracts. Recently, GSA awarded contracts to six card issuers for the next-generation government charge cards. TSYS performed the necessary upgrades in 1998 to support the unique needs required under the new GSA contracts. Today, TSYS processes approximately 86 percent of the MasterCard and Visa USA commercial cards in the United States and 100% of the GSA-issued cards.
  • TSYS has developed and implemented a strategic supplier alliance program called PRIME, which consists of a supplier profile for selection purposes, a supplier performance report, supplier site visits, and supplier feedback mechanisms. The success of PRIME has enabled TSYS to develop a supplier partnership with the U.S. Postal Service, the first of its kind in U.S. Postal Service history.
  • Visa and MasterCard have recognized TSYS as having the fastest authorization response times in the industry. Since 1996, TSYS has received four VisaNet Processor Performance Awards for Lowest Assured Transaction Response Rate and Lowest Purchase Authorization Response Time in relationship to its competitors.

TSYS (www.totalsystem.com) is one of the world’s leading information technology processors of credit, debit, commercial and private-label cards. An 80.8% owned subsidiary of Synovus Financial Corp. (NYSE: "SNV")(www.synovus.com), TSYS serves card-issuing institutions throughout the United States, Puerto Rico, Canada and Mexico. Creating innovative processing solutions, TSYS makes it possible for more than 117 million cardholders to use their cards and enables card-issuing institutions to profitably compete and better serve their customers through our world-class people, technology and service.

Contacts:
Danita Gibson-Lloyd
Corporate Communications Manager
Total System Services, Inc.
ph. (706) 649-5578
dgibsonlloyd@totalsystem.com

Kimberly Knight
Corporate Communications Spec.
Total System Services, Inc.
ph. (706) 644-1218
kknight@totalsystem.com