Ottawa, Canada, April 5, 2001 - Precidia Technologies Inc. and Scotiabank announced today a strategic partnership to offer Canadian retailers IP based solutions for transaction processing using network provider Bell Nexxia.

Scotiabank is the first financial institution in Canada to offer this advanced solution that moves debit and credit transactions from older, more costly networks to a more advanced, cost effective IP infrastructure to better serve its customers' needs. This offering is made possible by Precidia's unique IP enabling products, the Ether3201 and IP3201, addressing both router based and router-less retail environments. Whether the retailer has existing IP network access or not, these solutions provide a seamless migration strategy for retail payment terminals. The Precidia solution is unique in its capacity to improve operating efficiency and lower costs in any type of retail network.

Bell Nexxia brings its state-of-the-art, scalable broadband network to the partnership, migrating Scotiabank to an IP-based solution. The bundled point-of-sale solution will allow the bank to manage and maintain point-of-sale terminals remotely online.

"This implementation, " said Deepak Wanner, President of Precidia Technologies, "Is a validation of our strategy of cost effectively replacing older X.25 based networks with newer IP based infrastructure. Not only does the Precidia solution provide this migration strategy, but it offers a suite of superior transaction management tools never before available," concluded Mr. Wanner.

"Scotiabank is proud to play a leadership role in offering innovations in technology to the retail payments industry to meet our customers' changing needs", said Ed Lomax, Scotiabank's Director of Electronic Banking. "With this solution, our customers can lower their costs and benefit from the broad range of transaction management features."

About Scotiabank
Scotiabank is one of North America's premier financial institutions, with more than $273 billion in assets and approximately 52,000 employees worldwide, including affiliates. It is also Canada's most international bank with more than 2,000 branches and offices in over 50 countries. For more information, visit Scotiabank on the Web at www.scotiabank.com.

About Bell Nexxia
Bell Nexxia, a unit of Bell Canada, is a leader in providing innovative communications solutions to large enterprise customers across Canada and the United States. Bell Nexxia offers a coast-to-coast and international IP network with a variety of business services including Bell Nexxia's IPConnect Access, IP Virtual Private Networks (VPN), Extranet and IP Hosting services. Leveraging the strength and expertise of the BCE (NYSE/TSE: BCE) group of companies and strategic partnerships with industry leaders such as Nortel Networks (NYSE/TSE: NT) and Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO), Bell Nexxia provides its customers with cost-effective next-generation services they need to compete in the global marketplace. Bell Nexxia's Internet Web site is located at www.bellnexxia.com.

About Precidia Technologies
Precidia Technologies Inc. is a global leader in the design and manufacture of IP access devices for a wide range of industries, including retail payments and building automation. With customers in over 75 countries, Precidia's unique product line of wired and wireless access devices seamlessly migrate stand-alone serial and dial equipment onto more sophisticated IP networks. For more information, visit Precidia on the Web at http://www.precidia.com.