TSYS Expands Payment Services in Portugal

Sonae Launches Gift Cards across Seven Retail Store Formats

Columbus, GA, and York, England,  August 16, 2005 - TSYS, one of the world's leading payment-services firms, today announced an agreement to provide closed-loop gift-card services for Sonae Distribuicão (Sonae), the retail division of the Sonae Group and one of Europe's leading retailing organisations.

Sonae Distribuicão includes Portugal's largest retail chain, Modelo Continente SGPS, which operates a range of hypermarkets, supermarkets, consumer electronics, textile, building materials and computer-equipment chains. Sonae is also the fourth-largest food retailer in Brazil, with strong market leadership in the southern region.

Earlier this year, Sonae launched pre-denominated gift cards available for purchase in its Continente and Worten stores. The cards are available in more than 280 stores across seven store formats, allowing for Sonae to capitalise on the growing popularity of gift cards in Portugal.

"Our relationship with Sonae demonstrates the momentum that the gift-card concept is building among European retailers," says John Goodale, director of retail and prepaid services for TSYS Europe. "The popularity of a payment product that is convenient, safe and durable for retailers and consumers is clear evidence of its universal value and appeal."

Sonae's gift-card program will be supported entirely through TSYS Europe in York, England. TSYS Europe projects that it will support more than 18 million bankcard accounts - including more than 8 million gift-card accounts - for financial institutions and retailers in 14 European countries by year-end. In total, TSYS processes more than 420 million payment cards (as of 31 July 2005) in multiple languages and currencies across three continents.

About Sonae
Sonae SGPS manages a portfolio of diversified businesses by setting strategic guidelines and objectives, monitoring their performances, fostering synergies between them and identifying new business opportunities. The portfolio includes: Sonae Industria (wood panels, forestry and sawmills), Sonae Distribuicão (food and non-food retail), Sonae Sierra (ownership, management and development of shopping centers), Sonaecom (fixed and mobile telecommun-ications), and Sonae Capital (tourism, construction, transport, media and risk capital).

About TSYS
TSYS (www.tsys.com) is one of the world's largest companies for outsourced payment services, offering a broad range of issuer and acquirer processing technologies that support consumer finance, credit, debit and prepaid services for financial institutions and retail companies in North America, Europe and the Asia Pacific. Based in Columbus, Ga., TSYS (NYSE: TSS) is 80 percent held by Synovus Financial Corp. (NYSE: SNV), one of FORTUNE magazine's "Most Admired Companies" and a member of its "100 Best Companies to Work For" Hall of Fame. For more information, contact news@tsys.com.

Contacts
Cyle Mims
TSYS Media Relations
+1.706.644.3110
cylemims@tsys.com

Shawn Roberts
TSYS Investor Relations
+1.706.644.6081
shawnroberts@tsys.com