DALBAR Joins Forces with MSN MoneyCentral To Help Consumers Find The Right Advisor.

BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 14, 1999--

DALBAR, Inc. today introduced a new Internet service to provide intelligent profile matching for locating financial professionals on the award-winning MSN(TM) MoneyCentral(TM) personal finance service. This new service asks consumers about their needs, preferences and personality, and identifies qualified financial professionals that are best suited to provide help. This service has been developed in conjunction with 25 major financial institutions.

"The problem," according to DALBAR's president, Louis S. Harvey, "is that the old trial and error method of finding a financial professional often yields the wrong advisor! The wrong advisor translates into lost money, lost time, lost sleep or worse."

Rich Bray, General Manager of Financial Products at Microsoft Corporation, said "Through our arrangement with DALBAR, MSN MoneyCentral is giving the consumer access to pre-qualified financial professionals that are most likely to fit their needs and match their personalities."

Bray also said: "We're pleased to be working with DALBAR to deliver this valuable service exclusively on MSN MoneyCentral. The combination of Microsoft's technology and DALBAR's high-quality directory of financial professionals results in a superior matchmaking service that helps consumers find advisors fitting their financial and personal preferences."

Microsoft has created a sophisticated interactive tool available exclusively on MSN MoneyCentral, which is based on DALBAR's research of the key factors that produce a successful relationship between financial professionals and clients. The new service gathers information from consumers on a highly confidential basis and interrogates the DALBAR database, which contains detailed profiles of qualified financial professionals. Consumers are then presented with a list of the top five advisors that match their criteria, ranked in order of compatibility.

Professionals in the database are pre-screened to ensure that each meets or exceeds standards of experience and service levels and have no history of wrong doing. Each financial professional must also agree to put his or her clients' interest first in order to be included in the new service that helps consumers find an advisor.

The MS-DALBAR service is designed to cover a wide range of professional services including:

--Overall Financial Management

--Insurance

--Tax Advice

--Estate Planning

--Investment Management

--Business Succession Planning 

The service is being launched at a time when consumer demand for personal financial advisors is expected to grow exponentially. According to DALBAR research the number of households using a personal financial advisor will grow from 11 million today to some 60 million over the next 15 years. "The new service will help millions of Americans who one day will need a financial professional to protect and grow their wealth," said Mr. Harvey.

The new service to help consumers find an advisor is provided by MSN MoneyCentral and is currently available through beta.moneycentral.com (via links on the main page and the Retirement section), DALBAR.com and directly through TheRightAdvisor.com.

Financial professionals interested in participating in the new MS-DALBAR service should visit www.dalbar.com/web_referral.htm for more information and an application. -0-

                            MEDIA CONTACTS

       NAME                      FIRM                       PHONE

Institutional Representatives

Phyllis Bernstein      AICPA                             201.938.3663
Terri Anderson         Amer. Exp. Financial Advisors     612.678.4965
Bill Good              Bill Good Marketing               801.572.1482
Carole Alexander       Fidelity Investments IBG          617.563.5800
Colin Mackenzie        Financial Network                 800.879.8100
Cathy Nogara           First Allied Securities           800.336.8842
Lisa Bell              Fulcrum Financial                 617.578.4791
Jim Greenawalt         Kemper Funds                      312.537.1677
Caroline Martin        Lincoln Financial                 860.466.1330
Nadine Vogel           MetLife                           212.578.4275
Chris Breslin          MONY                              917.206.3421
Vince Cloud            Mutual Service Corp.              800.749.3012
Marc Lonnergren        New York Life Insurance Co.       212.576.6879
Steve Samuel           Star Legal                        781.461.2916
Maria Verven           U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray        612.342.6584
Gail Eisencraft        Warburg Pincus                    212.878.9560

Financial Professionals

Gerald Butrimovitz     Butrimovitz & Associates          415.566.0400
Richard Erwin          Investors Asset Management        972.985.7162
Daniel Arnold          Merrill Lynch                     219.427.6688
Robert Glovsky         Mintz Levin Financial Advisors    617.348.1802
Ron McCallister        Ron McCallister                   503.977.7772

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For further details, please contact Robert Powell at 617-624-7116 for a Fact Sheet.

Microsoft, MSN, and MoneyCentral are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other countries.

TheRightAdvisor is a registered trademark of DALBAR, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries.