Strategic Alliance

RNS Number:3532U
Marlborough Stirling PLC
19 January 2004


For immediate release                                         19th January 2004

Marlborough Stirling plc

Strategic alliance with Fundsdirect

Marlborough Stirling is delighted to announce a significant extension to its
portal services business ("The Exchange") through the formation of a long-term
strategic alliance with Fundsdirect, the fund supermarket and multi-product
platform, owned by Egg and Prudential. By combining The Exchange's Exweb IFA
portal, which currently has approaching 18,500 registered users, with the
established Fundsdirect open architecture, multi-fund and multi-product
platform, Marlborough Stirling and Fundsdirect will deliver the first full open
architecture wrap account service for financial intermediaries in the UK.

The integrated wrap account will enable intermediaries to manage, transact and
value traditional life and pension policies together with a full range of unit
trusts, OEICs and equities in various tax wrappers. In markets such as Australia
and US where wrap accounts are more established as much as 80% of all new
investment monies are placed into these services by advisers. In the US alone
funds in wrap accounts stand at around $750bn.

This new service represents a natural strategic development to the Exweb
platform.  By adding access to funds and equities to its platform, The Exchange
is further extending the range of services available to its users. This
complements the infrastructure that The Exchange is already putting in place for
transactions and valuations of life and pensions products within Exweb Gold, the
next generation of Exweb.  As well as being able to process transactions online,
the service will also have the capability to take paper instructions and is set
to be the first service in the UK to offer management of all a customer's assets
in one place.

Reflecting the strategic nature of the relationship between the parties,
Marlborough Stirling expects to receive a 5% shareholding in the parent company
of the Fundsdirect group, Investment Funds Direct Holdings Limited, once work is
completed to integrate Exweb with the Fundsdirect platform. Following launch of
the wrap service in late 2004, Marlborough Stirling expects to benefit from
growing recurring revenues as take up of the service occurs.

Further information:

Marlborough Stirling                                        [phone]
Huw Evans, Chairman and Chief Executive
Bob Beveridge, Finance Director


Citigate Dewe Rogerson                                      [phone]
Toby Mountford
Alex Brown



About Marlborough Stirling


Marlborough Stirling (www.marlborough-stirling.com) provides solutions to the
mortgage, life, pension and investment market sectors.  Its software and
services enable financial service providers and intermediaries to meet
consumers' demand for financial products that are flexible, capable of being
distributed through a variety of channels and processed efficiently.

The group employs approximately 1,700 people and has offices in Cheltenham,
Basingstoke, Brighton, Bristol, Cobham, Dudley, Hitchin, Dublin, Douglas in the
Isle of Man, Cape Town, Madrid, Milan, Toronto and Vancouver.

Clients of the group include Alliance & Leicester, Bank of Scotland, CIBC,
Co-operative Insurance Society, Coventry Building Society, Egg, Legal & General,
Nationwide Building Society, NBS Bank, Royal London, Sanlam and Sun Life
Financial of Canada (UK).

About Fundsdirect

Fundsdirect launched the UK's first online fund supermarket in December 1999.
Fundsdirect was acquired by Egg at the beginning of 2002. In December 2002
Prudential acquired a 15% share in Fundsdirect. Egg currently retains the other
85%.

Fundsdirect has built a reputation as a leading institutional UK fund
supermarket by offering investors the opportunity to purchase funds at
significantly discounted costs. The consumer fund supermarket offers
approximately 1,500 funds from over 80 individual fund managers.

The Adviser Platform from Fundsdirect is an internet based technology platform
which will combine a range of investments including equities, managed funds and
bonds from different manufacturers. This will enable advisers to manage and
transact a client's entire financial portfolio from one platform, giving a
holistic view of their assets. It removes much of the burden of dealing with
multiple providers, by providing single commission statements, for example.

The Adviser Platform also incorporates a number of financial planning and
reporting tools to assist in the research and management of the client's
portfolio. The benefits of the platform will enable the adviser to adopt a more
efficient business model, tackling changes in the regulatory environment and
distribution dynamics, reducing administration and paperwork and freeing up time
to provide a better service to their clients.


                      This information is provided by RNS
            The company news service from the London Stock Exchange
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