[April 26, 2004] FSV Payment Systems to Provide Darden Restaurants Payroll Debit Card Service HOUSTON --(Business Wire)-- April 26, 2004 -- FSV Payment Systems Ltd. (FSV) today announced that it will provide Darden Restaurants, the world's largest casual dining restaurant company, with a new payroll debit card program. Darden, which owns and operates 1,300 Red Lobster, Olive Garden, Bahama Breeze and Smokey Bones Barbeque & Grill restaurants, will give its 140,000 U.S. employees the option of having their pay placed on a PAYCHEK PLUS! payroll card. Instead of a paper check, employees who sign up for the program will receive what looks like an ATM card loaded with their weekly salary. The card may be used at ATMs and retail point-of-sale terminals across America. "We're pleased to offer this benefit to Darden employees who are not currently using electronic deposit," says Eric Miller, chief executive officer of FSV. "This payment option provides the same benefits of automatic payroll deposit. Employees will receive their pay quickly and conveniently without having to pay extra fees for cashing their paychecks." Nationwide, people without bank accounts often pay extra fees just to cash pay checks. Currently, employees who do not have checking accounts are paying approximately 2.5% of their gross wages to cash payroll checks, according to the American Payroll Association. "We want our employees to have the benefits that our direct deposit employees enjoy," said Melissa Sublette, senior director of Payroll Services and Benefit Finance for Darden. "This new program gives our employees a variety of payroll choices." PAYCHEK PLUS! is FSV's turn-key product offering for ePayroll, designed to easily implement from the corporate payroll side. Set up like direct deposit, payroll systems can operate easily without major changes. About Darden As the largest casual dining restaurant company in the world, Darden Restaurants Inc. (NYSE:DRI) owns and operates over 1,300 Red Lobster, Olive Garden, Bahama Breeze, and Smokey Bones restaurants with annual sales of $4.7 billion. Darden is headquartered in Orlando, Fla., (www.darden.com). About FSV Payment Systems Ltd. FSV Payment Systems offers a robust suite of unique, host-based stored-value and payroll debit card solutions direct to large employers and to financial institutions through an exclusive agreement with Fiserv Inc. (Nasdaq:FISV). The FSV processing platform is both proprietary and configurable, allowing for the delivery of both standard and non-standard programs based on consumer requirements. For more about payroll debit cards and the delivery of paperless payroll, go to the American Payroll Association Online Payroll Debit Card Resource Center: www.americanpayroll.org, and click the navigation button for FSV Paycard Info. For more about FSV, go to www.fsvpaymentsystems.com, www.paychekplus.com, or www.payrolldebitcards.com. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]