NEW HAVEN, CT, September 2, 2004 – Higher One, the leading provider of customized financial services dedicated exclusively to the higher education market, today announced it has signed an agreement with General Meters Corporation to provide OneCard ID/financial service cards for colleges and universities. Higher One and General Meters will provide seamless integrations and setups of campus transaction systems for electronic financial disbursement and banking programs for colleges and universities throughout the U.S.

Once a university has defined all requirements and specifications for their campus-wide transaction system, Higher One and General Meters review the system specifications, design and finalize an integration solution. This partnership is critical to the successful transition to a new card offering banking services. General Meters’ University One-Card System™ with 1 Card IDTM is a fully integrated component allowing schools to have ID cards produced by Higher One offering many functions using the same database and file server. The cards can be used to open doors, for confirmation of rights and privileges, for debit card purchases, and for all kinds of vending thereby replacing keys and cash on the campus.

“We are pleased to work with a provider like General Meters Corp. with such length and depth of experience providing card solutions to higher education,” said Dean Hatton, President & CEO, Higher One. “The smooth integration of IT systems is critical to implementing our new card programs that streamline business processes and provide real-time information for a wide variety of services provided by university offices including Business, Financial Aid, Card Operations, Library, Meals, Residential, Campus Services and local merchants.”

“General Meters’ University One-Card System™ is an ideal fit with Higher One in helping schools to reduce costs and increase transaction efficiencies,” said Leon Gottlieb, President, General Meters Corp. “The system is unique in that it can operate online by dispensing goods and services by transferring money from the user's account to the account of the provider of the goods or services, or off-line. It maintains the total integrity, privacy and security of operations and records of outside vendors like Higher One.”

Students, faculty and staff can use Higher One’s OneCard – the new university branded ID card - for primary bank access, as a MasterCard® debit card, retrieving cash from ATMs, making purchases on and off campus, transferring money electronically and monitoring their accounts online on a new University-branded Web site, stored value programs, and a rewards points program through local merchants.

Higher education institutions use Higher One's solutions to create significant cost avoidance, streamline business processes, increase revenue opportunities, improve the student experience, and strengthen the campus community. Higher One helps schools increase efficiency and save money with financial service programs that reduce paper checks and increase electronic payments of financial aid and other disbursements to students.

Higher education’s interest in electronic fund disbursement and banking is increasing as schools seek to lessen the impact of budget cuts by reducing administrative costs, while needing to offer additional value-added services to students. Studies by institutions have found that the cost of each paper disbursement can run as high as $35 per payment. Some universities have approached this issue by offering ACH Direct Deposit of refunds. This method is an improvement, but enrollment usually averages 30 to 35 percent and the institution is burdened by supporting two processes. Higher One’s patent-pending OneDisburse^® Service is a completely new method that enables the institution to dispense with writing any paper financial checks.

Higher One has become the standard of service for American higher education institutions looking for the most efficient, student-centric, and cost-effective way of disbursing financial refunds. In the period from June 2003 - May 2004, Higher One processed over $180 million in financial aid and other refunds eliminating more than 123,000 checks for its university clients. A mid-size university of 15,000 can typically create $500,000 per year in cost avoidance through Higher One’s OneDisburse^® and OneFinance^SM services.

Higher One’s customers include University of Wisconsin - La Crosse, University of Wisconsin – Stout, University of Wisconsin - Parkside, Marshall University, Sam Houston State University, Angelo State University, Pace University, Liberty University, Eastern Michigan University, University of Houston, State University of West Georgia, Kennesaw State University, and Lamar University.

Higher One currently serves seventeen University and College clients nationwide.