Serasa, DMR Consulting, and Mantas Partner to Prevent Money Laundering in Brazil

SĂŁo Paulo, Brazil and New York, NY, June 20, 2006 - Serasa, DMR Consulting, and Mantas, Inc. will join forces to bring a powerful solution to help Brazilian financial institutions meet the threat of money laundering. Serasa, one of the world’s largest analysis and credit decision and support companies; DMR Consulting, a multi-national business and information technology consulting firm; and Mantas, a leading global compliance and operational risk management solutions firm, have formed a strategic partnership, officially set to launch Wed., June 21, at the Ciab 2006. The largest Latin American banking technology conference, Ciab 2006 runs through June 23 and is organized by the Brazilian Federacy of Banks (Febraban) at the Transamerica Expo Center in SĂŁo Paulo.

New legislation in Brazil now holds the financial institutions liable if they process criminals’ illegally gained money into “clean” money that appears legitimately earned by placing the responsibility for identifying and reporting suspicious transactions directly on financial institutions. Despite the severity of the law, recent scandals in the public sector and the continued success of organized crime demonstrate that current systems are inadequate.

The new joint Anti-Money Laundering (AML) service offering by Serasa, DMR Consulting, and Mantas will offer banks a powerful and robust solution for anti-money laundering with a lower cost of implementation and operation. “Brazilian financial institutions are now seeing the risks of money laundering both in meeting regulations, as well as with their reputation with customers,” said Pablo Morales, Partner-Director of Financial Entities, DMR Consulting. “The direct loss of market value coupled with sanctions by regulators is another strong motivator for implementing real solutions to address money laundering.”

The joint AML service is based on a highly scalable model that makes it possible for medium and smaller banks to leverage the same advanced behavior detection technology used by the largest global financial institutions in 211 jurisdictions. The solution detects fraudulent activities during the money laundering cycle by analyzing structured transactions, hidden relationships, and other “suspicious behaviors” that indicate money laundering, while reducing false positives. By mitigating the risk of exposure to regulatory and reputation risk, firms are able to address the crime of money laundering in an easy to deploy and easy to maintain solution.

Edison Antonio Manzano, Compliance Director at Banco Real in SĂŁo Paulo noted, “The coverage provided by the Mantas AML solution provides Banco Real with the confidence to mitigate potential regulatory and reputational risks.”

According to Simon Moss, CEO, Mantas, “The market for cross market risk management represents a significant opportunity. To succeed, you need an impeccable and acknowledged reputation, technology to identify risks quickly and the ability to implement and locally support the solution at a compelling price. The combination of Serasa, Mantas and DMR respectively present a combined portfolio that presents the Brazilian Banking industry with the opportunity to lead the world in providing seamless Credit, AML and Risk Management to all banks, no matter what size.”

Mantas provides its clients with the industry’s most advanced solutions for regulatory compliance, loss prevention and revenue generation. Our clients recognize greater transparency of their business and make better-informed decisions as a result. Mantas is a global software company with operations in Europe, the Americas and Asia/Pacific. Recognized as a leader in global operational transparency, the company’s products are used by more than 5,000 finance professionals in more than 100 countries.

Headquartered in Herndon, Va., the company has offices in London, New York, and Singapore. Mantas is a Safeguard Scientifics, Inc. (NYSE: SFE) partner company. For further information please visit www.mantas.com.

DMR Consulting is a multinational consultancy, which provides its clients with global business solutions covering all aspects of the value chain, from business strategy to system implementation. DMR Consulting began operations in Spain in 1996 with the opening of an office in Madrid. It now has offices in Barcelona, Seville, Lisbon, Milan, Rome, Santiago de Chile, Buenos Aires, Mexico City, SĂŁo Paolo and Rio de Janeiro, with revenues of 190 million euros and employing 3,400 professionals. For more information: www.dmr-consulting.com.

Serasa, founded in 1968, is now one of the world’s leading economic and financial analysis and information firms, with full domestic and foreign coverage. In order to maintain this coverage, Serasa has operating agreements with the leading information firms in all continents. With a constant aim on innovative business information solutions, Serasa has, in the course of the past decade, contributed to changing Brazil’s credit culture, with continuous incorporation of cutting-edge technology resources.

In order to cover a continent-sized country, Serasa employs 2,000 professionals backed by a large Telecommunications and information technology center, with a presence in all Brazilian state capitals and major cities, a total 140 strategic locations.

For more information please visit www.serasa.com.br.