BURLINGTON, MA, September 25, 2003—Cognos (Nasdaq: COGN; TSX: CSN) today announced First Citizens Bank has selected its ReportNet business intelligence solution. First Citizens Bank, a subsidiary of First Citizens BancShares (Nasdaq: FCNCA), has 338 branches in the U.S.

The Cognos ReportNet system will provide First Citizens associates quick, self-service access to customer relationship information from multiple internal databases at the same time.

"Cognos ReportNet gives us a powerful new tool to increase efficiency and better serve our customers," said LaQuita Hudson, vice president of decision support at First Citizens Bank. "Among its many features, ReportNet allows us to produce customized reports from various databases that will identify additional products and services to meet customers' needs."

Designed for thousands of users, Cognos ReportNet is fully integrated within the Cognos Enterprise Business Intelligence solution, including flexible scorecards, dashboards, powerful industry-leading OLAP analysis, event detection and alerting, and data integration.

"Its unique ability to offer total enterprise reporting coverage, create complex, compound reports with a simple drag and drop, as well as mission critical performance and scalability has made it the reporting solution of choice of leaders like First Citizens Bank," said Dave Laverty, senior vice president, global marketing, Cognos. "Cognos ReportNet will enable the promise of CPM, driving a global reporting standard across multinational organizations."

About First Citizens Bank
Founded in 1898, First Citizens operates 338 branches in 200 cities and towns in North Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia. Headquartered in Raleigh, the bank has $12.39 billion in assets. First Citizens Bank is committed to providing superior financial services to individual customers and small to mid-sized businesses. For more information, visit the First Citizens Bank Web site, firstcitizens.com.