Ashton Technology Group, Inc. Announces its Affiliated Broker, Croix Securities, Inc. Has Entered into a Clearing Relationship with Merrill Lynch's Broadcort Capital Subsidiary.

Business Editors/Hi-Tech Writers

PHILADELPHIA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 13, 2000

Ashton Technology Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASTN) announced today that its affiliated broker, Croix Securities, Inc., has entered into a new clearing relationship with Broadcort Capital Corp. "Broadcort's concept of street-side anonymity clearing perfectly complements our implementation of electronic systems anonymity for order handling, intelligent matching and report dissemination," said Fredric Rittereiser, Chief Executive of Ashton. Broadcort's anonymity clearing process, as well as its global reach, are perfect complements to these electronic trading systems and customer/product expansion into Canada, the Far East, and elsewhere around the world."

Croix Securities is a discount provider of eVWAP(TM) related services to the institutions in the financial services markets. The eVWAP(TM) Intelligent Match System allows clients of Croix to execute, before the market opens, at a standardized VWAP price for the day via complete electronic anonymity and then have their trades automatically clear and settle in anonymity from street side via Broadcort.

Broadcort Capital Corp., a subsidiary of Merrill Lynch & Co. (NYSE:MER) provides clearing and execution services to over 100 broker dealer clients worldwide. Thomas V. Conigliaro, Managing Director of Sales and Marketing at Broadcort said, "Our new relationship with Croix Securities continues to advance our goal to provide choices in the institutional marketplace to help satisfy the unique requirements of our clients' clearing and execution needs."

The Ashton Technology Group, based in Philadelphia, is developing a family of online transaction and intelligent matching systems, using advanced telecommunication and computing technologies, together with data and information security technologies, to facilitate global financial transactions. Ashton's proprietary transaction systems are made available to end users through private and public networks, third parties, and the Internet. Ashton concentrates on the concept of developing electronic trading systems as unique adjuncts to established exchanges. Additional information on the company is available on the World Wide Web at http://www.ashtontechgroup.com.

Broadcort Capital is a wholly owned and fully guaranteed subsidiary of Merrill Lynch with offices in New York. Merrill Lynch is one of the world's leading financial management and advisory companies with offices in 43 countries and total client assets exceeding $1.7 trillion dollars. For more information, visit Merrill Lynch's web site at http://www.ml.com.

In addition to historical information, this press release may contain "forward-looking statements", as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, that reflect management's expectations for the future. A variety of important factors could cause results to differ materially from such statements. Factors which could cause actual results to differ from current expectations, include the Company's ability to achieve expected future levels of revenue, dependence upon proprietary technology, ability to develop markets, and competition. These and other risks are described in greater detail in the Company's filings with the SEC, including those on forms 10-KSB and 10-Q.