CONTACT: Corporate Communications
(617) 563-5800
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| Fidelity Investments'® position as a leading international financial services provider is reinforced by the company's commitment to developing and applying innovative technologies. Always looking to enhance its customer service and streamline its business operations, Fidelity dedicates tremendous resources to researching, developing and implementing new technologies, enabling the company to play a powerful role in the growth of the investment industry.
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| Ten years ago, Fidelity had more than $200 billion in customer assets, processed 9.8 million customer transactions and fielded a daily average of 139,400 telephone calls from customers. In 2000, the company processed 821.5 million transactions, handled a daily average of 613,100 calls, and held more than $1.4 trillion in customer assets — growth that would not have been possible without a commitment to technology.
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| With technology a key part of the company's overall strategy, Fidelity has invested several billion dollars into research and development during the past decade, and about $2 billion — approximately 20 percent of revenue — in 2000 alone. Of the more than 30,000 people employed by Fidelity, about 20 percent are information technology professionals.
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| Fidelity has a long history of leveraging technology to offer the best possible service experience. What started with the purchase of the company's first mainframe computer in 1965 has grown into today's company-wide commitment to developing and applying new technologies to enrich its services. This desire to push the state-of-the-art further than our competitors has benefited Fidelity's wide range of clients — personal investors, institutional retirement plan participants, plan sponsors, and investment professionals.
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| Fidelity redefined how investors use the telephone for managing personal investments when, in the mid-1970s, it became the first company to sell retail mutual funds directly through a toll free 800 number, and again when it developed the award-winning Fidelity Automated Service Telephone system (FAST) in 1983.1 The FAST system handles 75 percent of the calls from retail and institutional customers, of which Fidelity received more than 613,000 a day in 2000.
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| The company broke new ground again in 1998 when it introduced one of the financial services industry's most sophisticated natural-language speech-recognition capability over Fidelity's automated phone service. Instead of using touch-tone, customers can now speak their requests, such as: "Buy me 500 shares of XYZ company," or "Give me my 401(k) balance," and the application – which recognizes regional American dialects from across the nation – will process the request.
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| Fidelity Investments Institutional Brokerage Group has also leveraged these phone innovations for use among its correspondent broker/dealer clients. Through myStreetscape TelephoneSM, broker/dealers can give their customers automated access to their brokerage accounts and market data from any telephone in the U.S., using either voice commands or the telephone keypad. Additionally, investment professionals at the broker/dealers can use the technology to request real-time quotes and watch lists, or place certain trade orders or find status of orders placed. For participants in defined contribution retirement plans, access to their balances, fund quotes, or changes in positions are all available via the phone. In fact, plan participants used the voice response system to contact Fidelity more than 48 million times in 1999.
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| Fidelity also has been an online pioneer, earning the distinction of being the first mutual fund company to establish a home page on the World Wide Web. The company now provides online tools and resources for nearly every financial service the company offers, whether the client is a retail customer, investment professional, plan sponsor or plan participant.
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| Retail Customers
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| For retail customers, the Internet has made delivery and use of investment tools convenient. In addition to the company's online brokerage and mutual fund services, Fidelity offers third-party research content to educate investors, planning tools to help investors define their goals, and transaction services to enable investors to put their plan into motion.
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| Retail customers and plan participants can use online planning tools to see how different savings and investment strategies may help them reach their various and sometimes conflicting financial goals. Someone on the verge of retirement can explore the many aspects of making that transition, including financial, health and lifestyle considerations, by visiting Fidelity.com. Whether a customer is looking to purchase an annuity, research insurance products, or consolidate his or her financial account information - investment, bank and credit card accounts, loans and mortgages, as well as email and airline frequent flyer miles – Fidelity makes these services and resources available through the Web.
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| Institutional Services
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| The company saw that the Internet provided a strong service channel for plan sponsors and their plan participants, and launched its workplace savings Web site in 1995. Seizing that opportunity, Fidelity built one of the first Internet-based retirement education and planning tools for its 401(k) and 403(b) retirement plan participants in 1998, and in 1999 the company introduced the country's first 401(k) plan sold and serviced exclusively over the Internet.
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| Benefits administrators can offer single-click benefits access to their employees through Fidelity's NetBenefits portal, allowing employees access to their benefit programs – including 401(k) and pension plans, health and welfare programs, and payroll information – by logging on once at a single Web site. Single-site access puts information, multi-goal planning and decision-support tools in the hands of the employees. |
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| Fidelity also eases the responsibilities of human resource professionals through a suite of Web-based, self-service tools for employees and managers. These tools allow human resource managers to focus on their strategic functions by outsourcing the labor-intensive, time-consuming administrative tasks associated with traditional HR and payroll duties.
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| Investment Professionals
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| The Internet also has provided Fidelity with an avenue to seamlessly deliver products, programs and services to investment professionals and their customers, and provide them with online tools and resources that can help them operate more efficiently, better serve their customers and grow their business. Through Fidelity's various Internet platforms, investment professionals and, in certain instances, their customers can access account information, up-to-date product information, daily fund pricing, market data and quotes, sales and marketing resources, customer service, and trading capabilities. For those firms that may provide their investment professionals with limited access to external Web sites, Fidelity has created a platform that enables the firms to syndicate Fidelity's content and integrate it within their own site. |
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| Firms that custody their assets on Fidelity Investments Institutional Brokerage Group's platform can use the company's Web-based services to offer their customers access to their personal account information through a Web site which can be integrated within the client firm's own site or customized with the firm's own look and feel.
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| Wireless – Clicking on the Go
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| Fidelity led the adoption of mobile communications with the introduction of its wireless service in 1998 and wireless trading in 1999. Fidelity wireless access allows personal investors to monitor and manage their investment portfolios from virtually any location in the U.S. using a variety of the most popular mobile devices – including two-way pagers, Web-enabled phones, and handheld computers. In 2001, Fidelity also became the first financial services company to offer in-vehicle investment services via OnStar's hands-free, voice-enabled Virtual Advisor2 .
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| Fidelity's institutional clients have benefited from the company's development of wireless applications as well. Plan participants for certain 401(k), 403(b) and employee benefits programs can now use wireless devices to access to their account balances. Some plan sponsors also allow their participants a limited ability to change their positions through a link on the wireless trading service.
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| Fidelity Investments Institutional Brokerage Group has also embraced wireless technologies as a tool for helping its clients enhance operational efficiencies and better serve their customers. Fidelity's correspondent broker/dealers, their clients, and Registered Investment Advisors can use wireless devices to stay connected to the market including receiving automatic alerts when a stock reaches a certain price and then taking action on that information by placing a trade order and receiving a confirmation. Additionally, investment professionals can offer their customers the ability to retrieve account balances, investment news and stock quotes, and in some cases place eligible stock trades, any time, virtually anywhere.
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| Fidelity also is updating its investor centers with industry-leading technology innovations designed to help customers find information and conduct business, while allowing them to interact with the branch staff as much, or as little, as they wish. The company has already completed the upgrades at investor centers in Massachusetts, California, Arizona and Florida. While working with customers face-to-face is still a priority, Fidelity's investor center staff also teaches customers how to use the technology to develop a degree of self-sufficiency and take advantage of available investment tools.
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| Nearly all Fidelity investor centers are equipped with touch-screen kiosks that allow investors to research and invest on their own. Discovery kiosks allow customers to access selected portions of Fidelity.com, where they can research investment strategies. At the trading kiosk, customers can get real-time quotes, trade on-line and access their accounts. And for the security and privacy of the customer, all kiosks have measures in place to erase the information from the screen when the customer steps away. |
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| Automated deposit machines also are located in most investor centers, allowing customers to quickly make deposits without having to wait in line. One check can be easily divided among several accounts, thereby making deposits easier and more efficient. Record keeping is simplified when a picture of the deposited check is printed on the receipt.
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| The innovations do not stop with the self-service advances. Branch staff also has access to Fidelity's latest planning technologies to aid those customers who want assistance mapping their financial future. Retirement consultants3, for example, use the latest planning tools for investor consultations, including Portfolio Review.
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| Whether competing in the retail, intermediary or institutional market, Fidelity's commitment to technology enables the company to excel. Fidelity's innovative use of technology has opened new markets, improved its customer service, streamlined its business operations, and distinguished Fidelity as a technology leader both within the financial services industry and beyond.
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