Alliance Trust launches innovative online dealing service

Alliance Trust, the fast-growing financial services company, today launched an innovative, low-cost online investment dealing service, enabling investors to buy and sell shares, and to trade across their various investment and pension plans, in a single instruction.

The real-time service, which has been piloted among 5,000 Alliance Trust customers since November, has been developed to make managing your overall investment portfolio quicker and easier. The service charges a flat rate of £12.50 for any trade regardless of size, and no up-front or annual account administration charges. The service now gives people access to Alliance Trust’s award-winning investment service online allowing customers to get real-time market quotes and deal immediately online. Alliance Trust is also offering customers the chance to enjoy their second trade free before 30 April 2007*.

On top of the innovative simultaneous sell-and-reinvest and cross-product trading options, the main attractions of Alliance Trust Online are:

A flat rate of £12.50 to trade all available equities, gilts and investment trusts. Unit trusts and OEICs cost £15 per purchase and £30 per sale.

Access to real-time quotes and trading across approximately 3,000 investment choices.

Trade any time, in or out of market hours;

Free transfer of cash between accounts;

Free access to a range of dynamic research tools;

Simple debit management, enabling you to top up your account by debit card, and to set up and manage direct debit and income reinvestment arrangements online.

Claudia Philips, Managing Director of Investment Dealing at Alliance Trust and previously responsible for establishing Halifax’s popular online and telephone sharedealing service, commented: “Most of today’s online investors don’t want to spend hours reviewing and making individual tweaks to their investment portfolios when this could be done in minutes. If you believe in the performance potential of a stock, chances are you’ll want to include it in more than one of your long-term plans, and if you’re selling stock there’s a decent chance you’ll want to reinvest the proceeds of sale elsewhere. Our service puts investors in full control of their portfolio with new tools built to suit the way people trade.”

“A sizeable wave of ordinary self-directed investors are choosing to manage their investment and pension portfolios online, simply because it is the most convenient, timely and cost-effective method of buying, selling and reviewing your holdings. What makes our service stand out is the all-round service that we offer. It is comprehensive, neat and simple-to-use. This is a well-designed online trading system backed by a company with years of experience in offering secure, reliable trading with tried-and-tested customer service. And, because you only pay for what you trade, it can give you outstanding value for money. What’s more, many people still expect the option to pick up the phone and talk to us or even post their trading preferences to their provider, and so we continue to offer our customers these options.”

Investors who would like to find out more about Alliance Trust Online, open an account or register to trade online should visit www.alliancetrust.co.uk/sharedealing

*£12.50 is charged when the second trade is made, then refunded by midnight on the same day. All further trades are charged as normal. This offer does not apply to OEICs and unit trusts.