DOR Doriemus

RNS Number:0287K
TEP Exchange Group PLC
14 September 2001


For Immediate Release                                         14 September 2001



                            TEP EXCHANGE GROUP plc

                             www.tepexchange.com


       TEP Exchange announces on-line deal with Financial Times website


TEP Exchange Group plc ("TEP"), which floated on the Alternative Investment
Market on 10 September 2001 and operates its proprietary electronic trading
platform for dealing in traded endowment policies, today announced that it has
entered into an agreement with the Financial FTyourmoney, the personal finance
channel of FT.com

The agreement gives consumers the direct ability to obtain a range of bids for
their endowment policies on the TEP Exchange's trading platform for the first
time. The TEP Exchange service provides an immediate on-line dealing facility
for trading endowment policies.  Consumers input their policy details directly
into the FTyourmoney website and receive a range of on-line quotes within
seconds.  The consumer can then nominate one of the Independent Financial
Advisers ("IFAs") selected to transact the sale online to the highest bidder.

FTyourmoney channel of FT.com has also negotiated a half percentage point
reduction in the commission charged by the IFAs, giving consumers better value
than they could achieve elsewhere.

Chief Executive Officer of TEP Exchange Group, Stephen Kay, commented, "The
strong subscriber base of the FTyourmoney channel will increase consumer
awareness of the traded endowment policy market in general and of the TEP
Exchange in particular".

The TEP Market can usually offer policyholders an increased cash price above
the surrender value offered by the life offices. This increase above the
surrender value is usually in the range of 10% to 40%.

"The fact that this service is now available online, means that consumers will
now find it much easier to achieve better cash values for their endowment
policies rather than surrendering them back to the life offices", Kay said.

As part of the launch of this new service, FTYourMoney.com will be emailing
their registered users with news of this innovative service. Paul Schofield,
e-commerce manager at FT.com, said that he was delighted to be able to offer
this service to FT.com users.
Enquiries


TEP Exchange Group PLC
        Tel: 020 8365 4666

Stephen Kay (Chief Executive)
            07957 332 354 (mob)


John East & Partners Limited
        Tel:  020 7628 2200

John East


David Worlidge

Buchanan Communications Limited
  Tel:  020 7466 5000

Tim Anderson / Rebecca Skye Dietrich



Notes to Editors:

Introduction

With profits endowment policies are a long established investment product. The
policyholder pays regular premiums, normally monthly, into a fund over a fixed
term of years. The policy will carry a guaranteed sum (on the basis that
premiums are paid until maturity) to which may be added annual reversionary
bonuses and a terminal bonus on maturity. With profits endowment policies have
frequently been used as a medium for repaying the capital on an interest only
housing mortgage at the end of the mortgage term. For a number of reasons the
majority of with profit endowment policies as a whole are not held until
maturity. The traditional way of releasing capital from such a policy was to
surrender it to the life company which had issued it. Because surrender values
offered by the life office do not always represent the intrinsic value of a
policy by reference to the guaranteed sum assured, reversionary bonuses paid
to date and a projected maturity value, investors are often willing to pay
more to buy a traded policy than the life office would offer for a surrender.



The TEP Market

The TEP Market is conducted through the Market Makers, which traditionally
purchase from the public, either directly or through IFAs. Policyholders do
not receive independent financial advice when selling direct to Market Makers,
since generally Market Makers act as principals or as agents for institutional
clients on a strictly execution only basis.



IFAs need to provide best advice when selling a client's endowment policy,
which in practice is taken to mean that at least three Market Makers should be
asked to quote their best bid for a policy. In the absence of an electronic
trading platform, this can be a time consuming exercise and, therefore, not
particularly productive for the IFA.



History

The Company was established in November 1999 by Moses Kraus and Abraham Weitz
to create an electronic trading platform for TEPs, with the flexibility to
trade other commodities and financial products.     #3.8 million was raised,
over a period, for the development of the TEP Exchange electronic trading
platform, which commenced trading with on-line quotes in February, 2001.



On-line bids are now supplied by four market makers and almost 5,000 IFAs have
registered with the TEP Exchange. In excess of 400 transactions with a value
of over #5 million have taken place.

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