Clearwater, Florida, - April 6, 2006: Nicholas Financial, Inc. (Nasdaq, NICK) announced that it has entered into an agreement with Verizon Business, provider of advanced communications and information technology, to provide a managed Private IP network that securely connects Nicholas Financial's branch office network across the United States.

Nicholas Financial is employing Verizon’s Private IP, the telecommunication company's flagship MPLS-based VPN, to securely transfer customer loan information over a network linking its 42 branch offices in Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina and Virginia, as well as to its disaster recovery center in Tampa, Florida.

Nicholas Financial Inc. selected the managed private IP network provider in order to strengthen data security, to add more branch offices and better protect its network in case of disaster, “IP networks offer more flexibility, and they're more secure because they can be isolated from other traffic.” said Michael Marika, CIO of Nicholas Financial. "In addition, with Private IP, we have peace of mind knowing that our network is secure, reliable and flexible enough to better serve our customers and support our future business decisions.”

"Customer privacy and security are critical to Nicholas Financial's success," said Steve Young, group president for Verizon Business commercial accounts. "Verizon Business is helping Nicholas Financial evolve its network to achieve new cost savings and capabilities while achieving its security objectives. By managing the network from end to end, we assume the total cost of ownership and enable Nicholas Financial to focus on its customers."

As Nicholas adds additional branch locations, they will become part of the Private IP network. “Verizon’s Private IP offers the ability to scale quickly and easily to meet the needs of our evolving requirements,” said Marika. “This fits in perfectly with our corporate strategy of carefully managing growth.”

Factors that led to the decision to go with a private IP managed service included demands on the company’s IT staff and hurricanes that threatened Clearwater in 2004. “Once the managed service was in place, demands on our IT staff for network support were reduced”, Marika explained. “With the Verizon service, we have found that our IT team can focus on the critical tasks of supporting our employees and developing application software. Verizon monitors the network and knows when irregularities occur. They are often on top of things before we are aware that there is a problem.” Nicholas was also able to establish a duplicate server site in Tampa to back up its network services center. “Should we suffer a catastrophic failure at our main headquarters, our disaster recovery site should allow our branch offices to be fully functional within an hour,” Marika said.

About Nicholas Financial
Founded in 1985, with assets of $141,982,000 as of December 31, 2005, Nicholas Financial, Inc. is one of the largest publicly traded specialty consumer finance companies based in the Southeast. The Company presently operates out of 42 branch locations in both the Southeast and the Mid-West States. The Company has approximately 10,000,000 shares of common stock outstanding. For an index of Nicholas Financial Inc.’s news releases or to obtain a specificrelease, visit our web site at
 www.nicholasfinancial.com

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