Compass Bank Joins with Knowledge@Wharton to Deliver Leading Business Insights to Clients

Philadelphia, PA & Birmingham, Ala -- Feb. 22, 2006 --Compass Bank announced that it has entered into a strategic affiliate relationship with Knowledge@Wharton, the online research and business analysis journal of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, which reaches more than 570,000 subscribers worldwide. As a result of this relationship, Knowledge@Wharton content will be delivered directly to Compass clients and contacts through a special co-branded Internet site located at http://compassbank.knowledgeatwharton.com.

"We are pleased at the opportunity to work with Knowledge@Wharton to give our clients such a valuable resource via the Internet," said George Boltwood, Compass' senior executive vice president and head of corporate banking. "Knowledge@Wharton offers the kind of insightful, practical content that is an ideal complement to our existing Compass on Business program."

Knowledge@Wharton, launched in 1999, has more than 1,500 articles and research papers in its database and continues to publish timely articles on important business topics both domestic and global. In addition to the English version, Knowledge@Wharton has developed a Spanish/Portuguese version in collaboration with Universia.net, a Madrid-based network of over 800 IberAmerican universities in Spain, Portugal and Latin America.

David C. Schmittlein, Deputy Dean of the Wharton School, welcomed the school's relationship with Compass Bank. "The corporate content affiliate program allows us to develop new relationships with firms that desire to bring depth of information to their online presence," he noted. Mukul Pandya, editor and director of Knowledge@Wharton, added: "We are confident that this initiative will bring value to Compass Bank and its clients, while also adding more readers to our fast-growing global audience."

Compass Bancshares, Inc. is a $30.8 billion Southwestern financial holding company which operates 384 full-service banking centers including 139 in Texas, 90 in Alabama, 71 in Arizona, 42 in Florida, 32 in Colorado and 10 in New Mexico. Compass is among the top 30 U.S. bank holding companies by asset size and ranks among the top earners of its size based on return on equity.

For more information, visit Compass, a member of the S&P 500 Index and the Dow Jones Select Dividend Index.

About Knowledge@Wharton and the Wharton School
Knowledge@Wharton is a free biweekly online resource that captures knowledge generated at Wharton through such channels as research papers, conferences, books, and interviews with faculty on current business topics, and distributes that knowledge online to a global business audience. The website contains more than 1,500 articles and research papers in its database and more are added every week. Over the past five years, Knowledge@Wharton has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, BusinessWeek, Economist Intelligence Unit, Information Week, and several other publications.

Corporate Content Affiliate Program: for more information about Knowledge@Wharton's corporate content affiliate program, contact Lucia Zapatero at zapatero@wharton.upenn.edu.

The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania — founded in 1881 as the first collegiate business school — is recognized globally for intellectual leadership and ongoing innovation across every major discipline of business education. The most comprehensive source of business knowledge in the world, Wharton bridges research and practice through its broad engagement with the global business community. The school has more than 4,600 undergraduate, MBA, executive MBA, and doctoral students; more than 8,000 annual participants in executive education programs; and an alumni network of more than 81,000 graduates.

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