Your Prosperity Portfolio Service and Super Trust to Close - 17 September 2003

MELBOURNE, 17 SEPTEMBER 2003: Following a strategic review of operations, the National's Your Prosperity Ltd has decided to close its Portfolio Service and Super Trust products to new investors, effective today. Existing members' accounts will be closed by 29 February 2004.

The closure will not affect the security of the listed securities or managed funds in member accounts. Your Prosperity will work closely with existing members through the change process.

Your Prosperity's Chairman, Geoffrey Summerhayes, said the decision was based on several factors, including Your Prosperity's strategic fit with the broader National's wealth management strategy of adviser-based services.

"The National's wealth management strategy is based on advisers providing quality financial advice to clients to help manage their investments. On the other hand, the Your Prosperity strategy has been to focus on the investor with a do-it-yourself approach to investing.

"Since the launch of Your Prosperity in 1998, there has been a slower than expected take up of online managed fund investing. This has been exacerbated by challenging market conditions over the past two years, which have resulted in fewer people than anticipated choosing a do-it-yourself approach to investing," he said.

"While Your Prosperity has continued to grow its customer base, we believe the National's strength in wealth management is in the provision of quality financial advice through financial adviser partnerships, and that's where we believe the focus should be."

Your Prosperity Portfolio Service and Super Trust products have approximately 7,300 members, with more than $342m in funds under administration. Your Prosperity employs 32 people and will be seeking to redeploy them throughout the National Group.

**ENDS**

Media Enquiries:
Samantha Evans, phone 02 9957 8731 or 0418 143 103

About the National's wealth management division
A division of the National Group, Wealth Management manages and operates a diverse portfolio of financial services businesses. Through partnership with a range of financial advisers, it provides quality financial planning services and wealth creation (investments, financial planning, private banking), wealth protection (insurance), and wealth succession (superannuation) solutions to retail and corporate customers, as well as portfolio implementation systems and business coaching services to financial advisers. Wealth Management, which includes MLC, is differentiated by its unique "manager of managers" investment approach and multi-channel distribution and advice capabilities. Wealth Management has more than 2.8 million customers across Australia, Great Britain and Ireland, Hong Kong, Thailand, Indonesia, and New Zealand, and manages more than $64 billion on behalf of retail and corporate customers.