Bank One's Online Planner Enables Consumers to Calculate Their Financial Needs

Business Wire, August 28, 2001

Business & High-Tech Editors

CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 28, 2001

Working Through the Numbers of Bill Consolidation, Home Equity Loans

and Retirement at bankone.com

Consumers can now use www.bankone.com to calculate their financial needs for retirement or college, and compare the advantages of debt consolidation and a home equity line of credit.

Using the website's personal finance section, consumers can enter financial information into Bank One's online planners and then evaluate how various alternatives could improve their financial situations. For example, they can calculate the amount needed for a home equity loan, and then compare lower payments and a long loan versus the faster payoff with larger payments.

Once a customer has determined the best route, they can review the various home equity loans offered by Bank One, the nation's fifth-largest bank holding company.

"The customer can select financial products online, print out the information and take it to a bank branch for personalized customer service, or share their plan online with a Bank One representative" said Michael J. Cleary, head of Bank One's Consumer Internet Group. "Helping customers meet their financial goals is very important to Bank One."

The retirement calculator enables a customer to build a plan for their retirement, then electronically forward it to their Bank One investment representative for additional assistance.

Consumers can save all the online planners - including different versions - for later review or rework. The site also allows consumers to create graphs of their financial situation and compare them to their economic peers.

The website tools are provided by Ignite Sales Inc., an online service provider based in Dallas.

The site can be accessed at www.bankone.com and clicking on the "Personal Finance" icon. After entering the "Personal Finance" section, the user will find the heading "Resources & Tools," under which is the subhead, "Visual Plans." Under the "Visual Plans" subhead, the user will find:

-- Debt Consolidation

-- Home Equity

-- Retirement

-- Education

When the user clicks on one of the topics, the self-explanatory site enables users to easily move through the process.

"Ignite's Visual Planners are the perfect fit for our website," Cleary said. "The planners are intuitive, easy to understand and provide immediate feedback to the consumer. This is what customers expect from the web."

"Ignite Sales is pleased to have the opportunity to partner with Bank One to prove that offering superior service to online customers can also build a sizable business for the bank," said Julie Hamrick, president of Ignite Sales.

About Bank One Corporation

Bank One Corporation (NYSE: ONE), headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, is the nation's fifth-largest bank holding company with assets of more than $270 billion. Bank One's retail division has 8 million customers and 30,000 employees. It operates 1,800 bank branches and more than 6,000 ATMs. More than one million Bank One customers are bankone.com users.

About Ignite Sales, Inc.

Ignite Sales is an online service provider that enables financial institutions (FIs) to generate qualified leads while building customer loyalty and retention by using interactive and personalized cross-selling methods. Ignite Sales was named as one of five

"Leading Online Financial Planning and Advice Providers," according to a recent report by IDC, a leading global market intelligence and advisory firm. The company's MoneyMatch(TM) and ProductMatch(TM) services allow FIs to convert their web traffic to immediate revenue by matching consumers with products at the consumer's time of need. FIs can also predict future consumer purchases using data compiled by these services' powerful, back-end marketing engines. Ignite's clients include: Bank One, Citigroup, Frost Bank, Sovereign Bank and Wells Fargo. For more information, visit www.ignitesales.com.