Agoura Hills, CA - March 15, 2000 - Cardservice International, Inc., today announced a software agreement with PremiumCHAT and will offer its merchants a turnkey e-commerce solution based on the PremiumCHAT System. PremiumCHAT™ will make it easy for BSP™ (business service providers) to bill for their services on the World Wide Web in real time. Previously this major business segment was exempt from doing business on the Web. PremiumCHAT™ is a revolutionary software program enabling the BSP to bill in real time for services online, negotiate their fees in advance, exchange documents and communicate across six world languages, while providing advice in a secure business environment.

"Our agreement with PremiumCHAT highlights Cardservice International's commitment to providing our partners and merchants with the tools they need to successfully do business online," said Frank Sherman, vice president of regional sales for Cardservice International. "For the first time, service-sector merchants can set up a store on the Internet in hours, complete with the assurance that they will be able to bill for services and that their services will be accepted for payment processing. We expect this to be a major accelerant to the growth of e-business in the service sector and a major advance in e-commerce solutions."

Robert Fair, Chairman and CEO of PremiumCHAT™ , agreed that "PremiumCHAT is a powerful addition to online e-commerce. The software created by our staff is the first Web-based tool that gives a BSP the ability to provide secure online business transactions and bill in real time. With Cardservice's state-of-the-art technology and eleven years experience they will help us add a new dimension making software a reality! PremiumCHAT™ provides the turnkey solution for any service professional to come online and gain market share. The process is simple. Acquire a Cardservice merchant account online at PremiumCHAT, download the software and enter your profile in our directory of services. Once approved for your merchant account you are ready to utilize our Web-based chat software to work with your clients in a secure environment. The PremiunChat software is free for both BSP and client versions. PremiunChat receives a modest flat fee from the BSP on a per-use basis, in addition to a small monthly management fee. Language translation is available on-the-fly at a small additional cost. We also welcome inquiries from other Web-based businesses that may wish to use our software on an OEM basis."

About Cardservice International

Cardservice International, Inc., is a global leader in providing real-time secure credit card transactions to merchants. Cardservice offers merchants a cost-effective service tailored to their businesses, enabling them to provide credit card processing over the Internet as well as to the traditional marketplace. The company's LinkPoint Secure Payment GatewaySM utilizes state-of-the-art Secure Sockets Layer technology and is easily scalable to any size business. The gateway is designed to communicate in real time with a business' core data-processing system to allow online transactions to be posted immediately. The gateway also delivers a full range of capabilities, including sales, returns, authorizations, online check processing and comprehensive real-time reports for easy Web management.

More than 170,000 merchants have contracted with Cardservice International of those, 50,000 are actively using Cardservice and/or the LinkPoint Secure Payment Gateway as their Internet solution. For more information about Cardservice International, go to http://www.cardservice.com.

About PremiumCHAT™

PremiumCHAT is a Southern California based company, represented by Wilson Sonsini Goodrich and Rosati of Palo Alto California http://www.wsgr.com. The company's B2B Instant Messaging products have been in development for sometime and are now ready for release. The company provides business-based chat systems and other B2B online solutions with their PremiumChat System™. For Additional information visit