CKFR Checkfree Corp (MM)

Active Index Advisors To Go Live on CheckFree APL -- Provider of Customized, Tax Managed, Indexed Portfolios for Separately Managed Accounts to Harness CheckFree APL's Scalability -- ATLANTA and JERSEY CITY, N.J., June 28 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- CheckFree Investment Services, a division of CheckFree Corporation (NASDAQ:CKFR), today announced that Active Index Advisors, the San Francisco investment management firm specializing in index-based separately managed accounts, is preparing to go live on CheckFree APL - the premier portfolio management and accounting platform. CheckFree Investment Services is the leading provider of outsourced trading, portfolio management, accounting, reporting services and data to broker/dealers, investment consultants and money managers in separately managed accounts. "Active Index Advisors does not employ a model portfolio approach but rather customizes each new account in relation to ongoing index changes and prices," said Alex Marasco, CheckFree Investment Services executive vice president and general manager. "As such, the scalability offered through CheckFree APL will perform a key role as Active Index Advisors looks to add many new accounts, each customized and tax managed for the individual." Active Index Advisors (AIA) combines individual customization and tax management typical of active accounts, with diversification and benchmark correlations common to index investing. Following an index-based approach that seeks to provide a pre-tax return similar to a targeted index, AIA's current offerings include an AIA S&P 500(R) Index Strategy, AIA S&P 400(R) Mid Cap Strategy, AIA S&P 600(R) Small Cap Strategy, AIA S&P 1500(R) Total Market Index Strategy, AIA S&P ADR/International Index Strategy and AIA S&P Global Index Strategy. All AIA strategies are customized for each investor, and employ active tax management strategies, such as loss harvesting. "The ability to add maximum value through active tax management is only achieved through true account level individualization," said Russell Parker, Active Index Advisors president. "The Active Index Advisors' approach requires a technology partner who is flexible enough to handle this level of complete customization and can offer tremendous scalability; a combination that only CheckFree can provide." Active Index Advisors will connect its proprietary trading platform with CheckFree APL to upload trade blocks for execution, receive position information, confirmations, corporate actions and prices. AIA also plans to utilize CheckFree APL to consolidate its back-office data, as well as for portfolio management and accounting, trade routing, reporting and billing. "We intend to get the most usage, front- to back-office, from CheckFree APL," said Mark Adams, Active Index Advisors chief operating officer. "Given that we actively tax manage each client account and provide extensive customization, it's necessary to create and maintain personalized, shadow benchmarks to accurately report after-tax performance. CheckFree APL will give us the capability to easily manage not only thousands of portfolios, but also the thousands of shadow benchmarks that go with them." CheckFree APL serves as the leading separately managed accounts platform, providing 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 Active Index Advisors ( http://www.activeindexing.com/ ) Active Index Advisors is transforming the investment choices available to the individual investor, by delivering institutional quality investment management to the managed account market through the use of its proprietary platform and unique focus. AIA's strategies offer the diversification and risk control of index strategies, combined with individual portfolio customization and active tax management. About CheckFree Investment Services ( http://www.checkfreeinvsvcs.com/ ) Headquartered in Jersey City (NJ), CheckFree Investment Services provides a broad range of investment management services to thousands of financial institutions. The company's staff of 350 professionals operates from six offices nationwide, including Durham NC, location of its M-Solutions software applications: M-Search, the leading separate accounts manager database and analytical tool; M-Pact, a Web-based, enterprise solution for manager analysis, reporting and proposal generation; and M-Watch, a performance reporting and measurement system. Clients of CheckFree Investment Services manage 1.5 million portfolios totaling $900 billion in assets. The CheckFree APL platform is leveraged by asset management, broker/dealer firms and investment advisors on a remote processing basis. About CheckFree ( http://www.checkfreecorp.com/ ) CheckFree (NASDAQ:CKFR) is a 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 March 31, 2004, more than 13 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 22.5 million e-bills each quarter. 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), Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2003 (filed November 13, 2003), Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended December 31, 2003 (filed February 12, 2004), and Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended March 31, 2004 (filed May 14, 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 Investor Relations, Tina Moore, +1-678-375-1278, or , both of CheckFree Corporation Web site: http://www.checkfreecorp.com/ http://www.activeindexing.com/ http://www.checkfreeinvsvcs.com/

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