PR - NOVA and American Express Sign Merchant Sales and Servicing Agreement

NOVA Information Systems (NOVA), a wholly owned subsidiary of U.S. Bancorp (NYSE: USB), and American Express (NYSE:AXP) announced the signing of an agreement under which NOVA will sign up and service American Express merchants on behalf of American Express. Under the terms of the agreement, NOVA will add American Express Card acceptance to the payment processing services offered to merchants. NOVA will provide processing, settlement, customer support and reporting to merchants for all major card brands.

NOVA will have the ability to offer American Express services to the thousands of new U.S. merchants it signs each month. The program is also open to existing NOVA merchants that wish to now add American Express Card acceptance and use NOVA as their single point of contact. With this agreement, NOVA now provides processing services for all major card brands — American Express, Discover Network, MasterCard and Visa — simplifying the process for merchants who would like to have one company to contact regarding any questions or issues.

Under this agreement, NOVA will offer processing and support services to small and mid-size merchants meeting defined processing parameters. American Express will retain the Card acceptance contract with the merchants, continue to set merchant pricing, perform authorizations, , and receive the same transactional information it does today. The program will be available to merchants that are new to American Express Card acceptance beginning in the second half of 2008.