Fingerprint-based Authentication Enables Eight Million Banco Azteca Customers to Open Bank Accounts for the First Time

MARCH 23, 2006

REDWOOD CITY, CA —Digital Persona, Inc., the leading provider of biometric authentication solutions for enterprise networks and commercial applications, today announced it has deployed the world’s largest biometric banking application to the over eight million customers of Banco Azteca, one of Latin America’s fastest growing banking institutions. The Digital Persona technology now enables 75% of Banco Azteca customers to establish and maintain savings and credit accounts for the first time, and dramatically increases the bank’s potential customer base.

Grupo Elektra, a leading Latin American specialty retailer, consumer finance and banking services company, needed a solution to assist subsidiary Banco Azteca’s customers, most of whom are of low income communities without drivers’ licenses or some secure form of identification. Convinced that a fingerprint-based system was the most convenient and secure way to authenticate customers and protect against identity theft, Grupo Elektra worked through Biometria Aplicada, a premier Digital Persona partner in Mexico City, to integrate the DigitalPersona® Platinum Software Development Kit (SDK) technology into its banking applications and, since February 2001 has registered over eight million customers. Moreover, the new offering’s popularity shows no sign of abating: registration is currently increasing at a rate of approximately 10,000 users each day and processes an average of 200,000 fingerprint matches daily across Banco Azteca’s 1,440 branch locations in Latin America.

“When an enterprise company is capable of successfully managing millions of customers’ information via fingerprint-based authentication, the true value of biometric technology is undeniably established,” said Digital Persona CEO Fabio Righi. “More important, perhaps, is the fact that technology is opening new economic avenues for people who, traditionally, have been underserved.”

The implementation of the DigitalPersona Platinum SDK has:

• Registered 75% of Banco Azteca customers allowing them to establish and maintain savings and credit accounts for the first time.
• Afforded Banco Azteca customers secure and convenient account access.
• Eliminated account holders’ need for ID cards that can be easily falsified, lost or stolen.
• Enabled Banco Azteca to authenticate large numbers of users, accurately and quickly.
• Eased the authentication of even the most poor quality fingerprint images.
• Dramatically increased Banco Azteca’s and Grupo Electra’s customer base.

“Using Digital Persona's fingerprint-based authentication technology, Banco Azteca has been able to open economic advancement opportunities to millions of people who previously lacked a reliable, if any means of identification and were subject to identity theft,” said Juan Arevalo, Director of Systems of Banco Azteca, “Instituting fingerprint identification has been a win-win situation for Banco Azteca and its customers.”

Banco Azteca aims to serve 80% of the Latin American population which typically does not have access to consumer financing or personal loans without pawning a personal durable and providing a formal proof of fixed income. After initial testing and national advertising, the DigitalPersona Platinum SDK solution was deemed the best solution for secure authentication of the over eight million Banco Azteca customers. The entire bank is now fashioned around the use of Digital Persona fingerprint-based technology as a means to verify the identity of its customers and therefore lower fraud.

About DigitalPersona

Digital Persona is the leading provider of biometric authentication solutions for enterprise networks and commercial applications. Founded in 1996, Digital Persona designs, manufactures and sells turnkey solutions that improve security and regulatory compliance while resolving password management problems. Its award-winning fingerprint technology is used worldwide by over 25 million people in the most diverse and challenging environments.

Digital Persona has strategic relationships with market-leading manufacturers and resellers including Intel, Dell Inc., Microsoft, GTSI Corp. and Hewlett-Packard. DigitalPersona® Pro, the company's flagship turnkey security solution for enterprise authentication, is used by leading organizations such as the U.S. Department of Defense, Cargill, Telefonos de Mexico S.A. de C.V, (TelMex), United Bankers' Bank and Sutter Health/CPMC.

Additional information is available by contacting Digital Persona, Inc. at +1 650.474.4000 or at http://www.digitalpersona.com/.

About Grupo Elektra

Grupo Elektra is Latin America's leading specialty retailer, consumer finance and banking services company. Grupo Elektra sells retail goods and services through its Elektra, Salinas y Rocha, Bodega de Remates and Elektricity stores and over the Internet. The Group operates more than 1,000 stores in Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Peru and Panama. Grupo Elektra also sells and markets its consumer finance, banking and financial products and services through approximately 1,400 Banco Azteca branches located within its stores, as a stand-alone, and in other channels in Mexico and Panama. Banking and financial services include loans, electronic money transfer services, extended warranties, demand deposits, pension-fund management, insurance, and credit information services.