DirectAdvice.com ranked top comprehensive online financial planner

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Business Editors,
BUSINESS WIRE

HARTFORD | September 27, 2000 -- Celent Communications, an online financial services research firm, named DirectAdvice.com, Inc. the No. 1 comprehensive online financial planner in a recently published report, "Ranking the Online Financial Planning Services." The report is intended to aid financial institutions looking for viable online financial planning.

"Celent's research confirms our strong belief that financial planning should take into account all financial goals and that advice must be comprehensive, personalized and actionable," said Brian L. Hollander, president and founder of DirectAdvice.

The report validates the financial planner's strategy of expanding into the business-to-business (B2B) market as highlighted by its recent agreement with Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette Securities Corp.'s Pershing Division. Pershing will offer DirectAdvice's online financial planning service to its network of 650 independent broker-dealers.

"Vendors in the financial planning space will continue to place more of their efforts on providing their services to their business clients," said analyst Isabella Fonseca, author of the report. "Vendors concentrating on this revenue model will be the most likely to succeed."

The finacial planner offers hosted technology to financial institutions. Its modular technology is customizable to support each financial institution's approach to delivering lifetime planning. Users can access financial planning from the financial institution's Web site using a single sign-on, allowing all data to be passed to the financial institution to be available for cross-selling opportunities.

The Celent report also highlights the proprietary tools developed by finacial planner to quickly and cost effectively customize its services to the needs of each institution. These tools allow business people to customize all parts of the service, including interview formats, advice and investment recommendations. These tools also enable institutions to integrate their own methodologies and practices into the advice platform to create a customized advisory service.

To obtain a copy of the report, please contact Frank J. Rizza at Celent Communications at 617/621-1113.