National Discount Brokers and Pentagon Federal Financial Services Sign Letter Of Intent to Form Internet Discount Brokerage Partnership
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NEW YORK, and ALEXANDRIA, Va., May 25 /PRNewswire/ -- National Discount
Brokers and Pentagon Federal Financial Services, a wholly owned subsidiary of
Pentagon Federal Credit Union, today announced the signing of a non-binding
letter of intent to form a strategic alliance offering a co-branded brokerage
solution to the 412,000 members of the Pentagon Federal Credit Union.
National Discount Brokers Corporation|ndb.com is a leading Internet brokerage
and financial services company and subsidiary of National Discount Brokers
Group, Inc. (NYSE:NDB). Pentagon Federal Credit Union is the third largest
Federally Chartered Credit Union with $3.3 billion in assets providing
market-leading financial services to Army and Air Force personnel, Department
of Defense employees and contractors, and their families worldwide.
"NDB is aggressively expanding into the B2B sector and finding tremendous
interest among banks and credit unions that want to offer online solutions to
their customers," said Dennis Marino, Chairman of National Discount Brokers
Corporation|ndb.com. "Our letter of intent with Pentagon Federal Financial
Services is the latest step in our strategy to partner with financial
institutions to expand our scope and build our customer base at a reasonable
cost."
The NDB/Pentagon Federal Financial Services partnership will offer members
of the military and Department of Defense employees and their families, the
ability to manage their brokerage accounts on the Internet through
pentagonfinancial.com and penfed.org. Pentagon Federal
Credit Union serves the special needs of the 412,000 members around the world.
"The opportunity to join with NDB will give our members access to the
leading online broker according to Barron's recent rankings and the best
brokerage services available on the Internet," said Pentagon Federal Financial
Services President Jay Petty. "NDB's experience in connecting financial
institutions to the Internet and our understanding of the special needs of
military personnel, creates a relationship that will provide the convenience
and quality product that our members expect and depend on from the Pentagon
Federal Credit Union."
The agreement will include joint marketing activities including
advertising and hyperlinks on pentagonfinancial.com and
penfed.org promoting NDB.com as the exclusive online broker for the
Pentagon Federal Credit Union.
About National Discount Brokers Group
Headquartered in Jersey City, New Jersey, National Discount Brokers Group,
Inc., an S&P Small Cap 600 Index company, is the parent company of two
financial services entities: National Discount Brokers Corporation|ndb.com and
NDB Capital Markets Corporation, formerly Sherwood Securities Corp. National
Discount Brokers, which was recently ranked #1 in the Barron's Best of Online
Brokers survey, on February 29, 2000 had 207,900 customer accounts, with
assets of $12.2 billion. NDB Capital Markets is a market maker in
approximately 4,300 Nasdaq and other OTC securities as of February 29, 2000.
The Company and its subsidiaries have offices in Jersey City, New York, Los
Angeles, Chicago, Denver and Boston. Customers can access National Discount
Brokers Corporation|ndb.com at ndb.com, via the PowerBroker
automated touch-tone telephone system 800-631-8884 or by calling
800-4-1-PRICE.
About Pentagon Federal Financial Services
Pentagon Federal Financial Services is a wholly owned subsidiary of
Pentagon Federal Credit Union. Pentagon Federal Credit Union, founded in
1935, is the third largest federally chartered credit union and one of the
largest credit unions serving the Army, Air Force, and Department of Defense
communities. Based in Alexandria, Va., Pentagon Federal has more than
412,000 members worldwide, assets of more than $3.3 billion, and branches in
Northern Virginia, the District of Columbia, North Carolina, Texas, Colorado,
Europe, Turkey, and the Pacific with member access via the Internet at
www.PenFed.org, toll-free telephone, fax, and regular mail. Pentagon Federal
member savings are insured to $100,000 by the National Credit Union
Administration, an agency of the U.S. Government. Pentagon Federal does
business in accordance with the Federal Fair Housing Law and the Equal Credit
Opportunity Act.
Statements made in this press release constitute forward-looking
statements, as that term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation
Reform Act of 1995. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties.
These forward-looking statements generally are accompanied by words such as
"intend", "anticipate", "believe", "estimate", "expect", "should" or similar
expressions. It should be understood that these forward-looking statements
are subject to a number of assumptions, risks and uncertainties, that could
cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in
the forward-looking statements. These uncertainties and risks include changes
in laws, rules or regulations, customer growth at NDB.com, and the ability of
software and hardware to be modified to perform the services required by the
agreement. Risks also include unplanned expense increases, due among other
things to unplanned expenditures for software, hardware and marketing
alliances, and other risks as set forth in the Form 10-Q of National Discount
Brokers Group Inc. for the quarter ended February 29, 2000. There can be no
assurance that the transactions referred to in this press release will be
consummated.
SOURCE National Discount Brokers and Pentagon Federal Financial Services
-0- 05/25/2000
/CONTACT: Investors - Rafael H. Yaghoutiel, Vice President, Investor
Relations of National Discount Brokers, 201-946-4482 or ir@ndbgroup.com; or
Media - Rich Tauberman, rtauberm@mww.com, or Matt Messinger, mmessing@mww.com,
both of The MWW Group, 201-507-9500, for National Discount Brokers; or Jay
Petty, President of Pentagon Federal Financial Services, 800-225-7116 or
petty@pentagonfinancial.com/
/Web site: pentagonfinancial.com
penfed.org
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