13 Mar 2000
Egg launches on-line Isa and Investment Supermarket
Prudential plc announced today that Egg - Britain's first internet bank - will open its on-line investment supermarket in the week beginning Monday 13th March 2000. This represents a major strategic initiative for Egg and is a significant development in UK retail financial services e-commerce.
Egg Investment has signed up 12 prominent UK fund providers who, between them, represent over 30% of the UK’s collective investment market. Together they manage over £55 billion for four million accounts. The Egg Investment Supermarket will have 169 funds at launch, ranging from Index trackers and general funds to specialist sector and geographic funds. Other fund managers will be added to the supermarket later.
New e-technology will provide Egg Investment’s customers with services which will allow them to:
check the value of their investment portfolio, updated daily, in their personal balance sheet;
include all their other assets and other personal finance details, such as the latest state of their mortgage, in their personal balance sheet;
create and monitor practice portfolios, to gain familiarity with the investment process – or play "fantasy fund management".
Other innovations include independent news and comment from Reuters and Motley Fool, more than 400 pages of investment information, an "investment profiler" to help customers to match their choice of fund to their personal requirements.
Jonathan Bloomer, Group Chief Executive of Prudential, said:
"We are delighted to launch this new service for Egg customers. It represents further significant progress with the business and continues to build on the first-mover advantage that we already have in UK retail financial services e-commerce."
Mike Harris, Chief Executive of Egg, said:
"We are providing a wide choice of tax-free ISAs and other investments from a dozen prominent British investment houses, with many more in the pipeline. Egg's e-commerce technology enables individuals to keep tabs on their investments - and on many others aspects of their personal finance - day by day. Egg's personal balance sheet makes it much easier for the individual to stay in control of his or her financial life. And, as usual, Egg is passing on the internet cost savings to the customer."
For further information contact:
Media - Jeremy Reynolds - 020 7548 3721
Analysts - Carys Walshe - 020 7548 3823
Egg Investment's 12 fund managers are Flemings, M&G, Schroders, Hendersons, Threadneedle, Jupiter, Aberdeen, Newton, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, Invesco and Mercury Asset Management.
Egg has over 940,000 customers and is ranked by IBM as the highest placed UK member of the world's top ten e-commerce banks.
To buy investments from the supermarket, customers must first have an Egg Savings Account. Until April, only Egg customers will be able to access the investment supermarket's online site.
Existing Egg customers can access Egg Investments at www.egg.com