ONE OF OUR BEST OPPORTUNITIES FOR REVENUE GROWTH is to leverage our position in payments. Electronic payment products have become more widely accepted worldwide and represent the potential to drive significant revenue growth. The acquisition of payments businesses and portfolios has been a strategic focus of U.S. Bancorp, as they add capability, increase scale and give our company an advantaged position in high-value, high-growth businesses. U.S. Bank's growth in payments acquisitions led the industry in 2005, far outnumbering those of our peer banks. Among our major transactions was the acquisition of Citibank Card Acceptance in Europe.

NOVA Information Systems, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of U.S. Bancorp, is a leader in the payment processing industry. Combined, NOVA and its affiliates euroConex and Elan provide global merchant processing services to more than 800,000 customers in the U.S., Canada and Europe. In 2005, NOVA processed more than one billion transactions worldwide.

U.S. Bank successfully combines information technology, business management and customer service in payment services, as well as throughout all of our lines of business. In November 2005, U.S. Bank won CIO magazine's 14th Annual CIO Enterprise Value Award in the banking and brokerage category. U.S. Bank won for Access Online, an electronic program management tool used by major corporations and government agencies, and created by U.S. Bank Corporate Payment Systems.

Recent acquisitions have expanded our merchant processing globally. At year-end 2005, euroConex acquired Citibank Card Acceptance, a part of Citigroup, Inc., and added 100,000 new merchant locations in more than 30 countries, including Ireland, the U.K., Spain, France, Belgium, Italy, Germany, Poland, Austria, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden, raising the company's total pan-European portfolio to more than 200,000 merchant locations.

Left: U.S. Bancorp is providing bank partners and merchants across Europe with a greater array of payment processing services, including cross-border acquiring, multi-currency processing and dynamic currency conversion solutions.