Internet Investor

THE EXCHANGE is unlike most Internet businesses. It actually makes money, with profits of£4m on turnover of £16.6m last year. It is also ancient in electronic terms, operatingsince 1991. It was set up by a life and pensions consortium to deliver information to independentfinancial advisers.

THE EXCHANGE is unlike most Internet businesses. It actually makes money, with profits of£4m on turnover of £16.6m last year. It is also ancient in electronic terms, operatingsince 1991. It was set up by a life and pensions consortium to deliver information to independentfinancial advisers.

Early in 1998 The Exchange was the subject of a management buyout for less than £20mand has since focused on the Internet as a delivery system. Last year The Exchange delivered about47 million quotations to a client base of 10,000 IFAs. Earlier this month it floated its shares,allowing the management to pocket millions with the firm valued at more than £400m.

The Exchange charges product providers a few pennies for each quotation and IFAs who use theservice a monthly fee.

MoneyExtra is its website aimed at consumers. It has a very good section on ISAs, so you can runa personalised search for the ISA best suited to your needs. Latest addition is an online lifeassurance comparison service, allowing you to compare products from several major insurancecompanies online.

The Exchange has big plans for MoneyExtra. Its next project is to develop a mortgage operation,handling mortgage applications online.

But what of MoneyExtra as it currently stands? It offers share prices in delay although a number ofsites now offer real time prices at no cost to the viewer.

While MoneyExtra has sections on all the main financial products, you may not buy any of themdirectly from the site itself.

The Exchange:

www.exchange.co.uk MoneyExtra:

www.moneyExtra.co.uk Robin can be reached at RobinAmlot@aol.com