FYI Alerts Service Enables Banking Customers To Receive Account Information Anywhere, Anytime

CLEVELAND, OH and CHICAGO, IL - Charter One Bank, a subsidiary of Charter One Financial, Inc. (NYSE: CF) announced the launch of FYI Alerts, a messaging service that will enable its online banking customers to receive a wide range of important account information on mobile phones, work or home phones, pagers, PDAs, email, and fax.

FYI Alerts is free to all Charter One personal and small business online banking customers and available at http://www.charterone.com . Customers can choose to be alerted to account activity such as recent transactions, low balances, new e-bill arrivals and more. FYI Alerts will also allow users to request a full financial summary in the form of a "mini- statement" - which can be set up to arrive daily, weekly or monthly. Centerpost Corporation, whose other clients include United Airlines, Travelocity and Motorola, is providing the service through its SmartDelivery technology.

"Charter One is very much a customer service-driven organization, and we constantly strive to give our customers tools to help them manage their accounts and stay informed, regardless of location," said Mark Grossi, executive vice president and chief retail officer for Charter One Bank.

"We believe that delivering account information to customers in a way that is most convenient to them is critical. With Centerpost's technology, we've taken communications to the next level, which gives us an opportunity to build better relationships with our customers."

Once customers request the information they want to receive, Charter One will deliver an alert using the communications channel preferred by each customer. Because the alerts are automated, personalized and interactive, Charter One can communicate more effectively and frequently with its customers. Centerpost's technology will be integrated with Charter One's existing online banking platform, so customers will find this new service feature easy to use.

The FYI Alerts service will also allow Charter One's business banking customers to take advantage of an alert forwarding service so, when an alert is generated, the system will also notify their accountant, bookkeeper or other business contacts.

"There's no question that Charter One is a visionary in how it serves its customers," said James Patrick, executive vice president of Centerpost.

"Centerpost's technology will empower Charter One's customers, enabling them to respond quickly to transactions or simply stay updated on account activities. This is a cutting-edge service that really differentiates Charter One's online banking offering from all of the others out there."

Moriah Campbell-Holt, a banking industry analyst with Gomez, Inc., an Internet quality measurement firm, noted in a recent research report how e-mail alerts can help resolve online customers' most pressing banking needs. "Online bankers selected alerting above and beyond any other method when presented with a variety of methods in which they could learn of various events or problems regarding their accounts," she wrote.