CKFR Checkfree Corp (MM)

CheckFree Investment Services Launches Real Time Account Opening as First Phase of NewGen Program with Merrill Lynch -- Initiative Drives Innovation and Efficiency in the Separately Managed Account Industry Toward a 50 Percent Cost Reduction Objective -- ATLANTA and JERSEY CITY, N.J., March 10 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- CheckFree Investment Services, a division of CheckFree Corporation , today announced the availability of APL Workflow for New Accounts. Workflow for New Accounts is the first moduleof the multi-million dollar upgrade of CheckFree APL, called NewGen. APL Workflow for New Accounts will streamline the investment management process by enabling the industry's first real-time new account open function between managers and sponsors. Bob Rubino, a director of Merrill Lynch's Managed Accounts Solutions Group, explains, "Funding an account instantly gets an investor's account working for them immediately. The elimination of paper-based and e-mail communications improves accuracy and timeliness. The benefits over batch processing are significant." CheckFree APL Workflow for New Accounts is being implemented initially in conjunction with Merrill Lynch to support its ongoing efforts to drive operational efficiencies for its managers. Three leading money managers in the Merrill Lynch Consults program are beta testing the functionality. The goal of the broader NewGen initiative is to enhance the reliability, efficiency, business process workflow, and usability of APL. As part of this process, CheckFree Investment Services is leveraging the Six Sigma experience and methodology that drives the industry-leading internetwork efficiency of CheckFree's electronic billing and payment platform. By applying the Sigma discipline to the SMA market, CheckFree Investment Services will increase quality and value to position customers to deliver increasing service and value to investors. Today, the average separately managed account costs $250 per year to maintain. With the NewGen program, CheckFree intends to cut those costs by 50 percent. The next functional areas to be addressed in the NewGen platform are Galaxy Trading, Reconciliation and an Advisor Workstation. As reported in the November MMI Meeting, the Separate Account Market is projected to grow to $4 Trillion by 2007. To support that growth, Investment Managers need to streamline their operations and reduce costs. CheckFree's investment in New Gen will enable the efficient growth of the industry. CheckFree also continues to investin its network hub supporting the communications among Managers and Sponsors. Over the last year, more than 300 new interfaces have been established with Extract, Transform, & Load (ETL) capabilities yielding improved efficiency for managers and sponsors. Cheryl Nash, formerly vice president of the CheckFree Investment Services brokerage business unit, is leading the project team of dedicated professionals working on the New Gen project. Work on platform conversion began 18 months ago with extensive participant requirement research and technology development. The project will span the next two to three years. About CheckFree APL Today, CheckFree APL is the leading separately managed accounts infrastructure that provides remote processing services to sponsor firms, money managers and financial advisors for the automation of investment management, trading, portfolio performance and investor reporting. CheckFree APL's open platform enables approximately 39 of the top 50 Wall Street (sponsor) firms and 36 of the top 40 managers to interface with each other, and operate in a straight-through processing environment. Institutional money managers also use CheckFree APL to enter and maintain account data, manage trades and measure portfolio performance. About CheckFree ( http://www.checkfreecorp.com/ ) CheckFree (NASDAQ:CKFR) is the leading provider of financial electronic commerce services and products. Founded in 1981 and celebrating its 23rd year in e-commerce, CheckFree is comprised of three divisions: Electronic Commerce, Software, and Investment Services. CheckFree launched the first fully integrated electronic billing and payment solution in 1997. In the quarter ended December 31, 2003, more than 12 million consumers initiated online payments through services offered by CheckFree's Electronic Commerce division. Electronic billing and payment is available through more than a thousand financial services organizations, including banks, brokerage firms, Internet portals and personal financial management (PFM) software. At these sites, consumers are able to electronically receive and pay essentially all the bills most common to a U.S. household. CheckFree delivers 18.5 million e-bills each quarter. CheckFree Investment Services provides a broad range of investment management services to thousands of financial institutions nationwide. The division's clients manage more than 1.4 million portfolios totaling more than $700 billion in assets. CheckFree's Software division provides solutions through three operating units: CheckFree ACH Solutions, CheckFree Financial and Compliance Solutions (CFACS), and CheckFree i-Solutions. CheckFree ACH Solutions provides software and services that are used to process more than two-thirds of the nation's nine billion Automated Clearing House payments, while CFACS provides reconciliation, financial messaging, workflow and compliance software and services to more than 600 organizations in the banking, brokerage, investment management, insurance and credit card industries, among others. CheckFree i-Solutions is the leading provider of e-billing and e-statement software and services for both business-to-consumer and business-to-business applications. Certain of CheckFree's statements in this press release are not purely historical, and as such are "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These include statements regarding management's intentions, plans, beliefs, expectations or projections of the future. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties, including without limitation, the various risks inherent in CheckFree's business, and other risks and uncertainties detailed from time to time in CheckFree's periodic reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including CheckFree's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended June 30, 2003 (filed September 15, 2003), and Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2003 (filed November13, 2003) and Form 10-Q for the quarter ended December 31, 2003 (filed February 12, 2004). One or more of these factors have affected, and could in the future affect CheckFree's business and financial results in future periods, and could cause actual results to differ materially from plans and projections. There can be no assurance that the forward-looking statements made in this press release will prove to be accurate, and issuance of such forward-looking statements should not be regarded as a representation by CheckFree, or any other person, that the objectives and plans of CheckFree will be achieved. All forward- looking statements made in this press release are based on information presently available to management, and CheckFree assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements. DATASOURCE: CheckFree Corporation CONTACT: Media, Judy DeRango Wicks, +1-678-375-1595, or , or Investors, Tina Moore, +1-678-375-1278, or , both of CheckFree Corporation Web site: http://www.checkfreecorp.com/ Company News On-Call: http://www.prnewswire.com/comp/821650.html

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