"Prudential's new electronic application is on the cutting edge in several respects," notes George Hanley, senior vice president, chief compliance officer. "The Online CDS makes Prudential easier for brokers to do business with, while taking the company to the next generation of appointment processing and on-line records management. All are important advantages in today's environment."

The Online CDS can be used by individual financial professionals completing their own appointment applications or by broker-dealers and firms seeking appointments on behalf of their producers. This paperless appointment request offers brokers the following advantages:

• elimination of delivery time required for a manual request
• a shortened appointment cycle time--from as long as several days to as little as one--minimizing lost business opportunities
• a tailored questionnaire requiring completion of only those sections pertinent to the individual applicant
• electronic authorization eliminating the need for wet signature
• automated license validation thereby eliminating the burden on the producer to provide a license copy
• e-mail to the producer allowing for instant notification of appointment confirmation

The Online CDS is innovative from both the company perspective and that of the producer. David Odenath, president Prudential Annuities, notes that the company completes over 100,000 state appointment requests each year. Odenath, responsible for annuity products at Prudential, including the American Skandia line, says, "The Online CDS is an invaluable tool, offering improved efficiency and accuracy given the level of activity and the resources required to bring the Prudential and American Skandia platforms to new producers. This allows us to increase the level of service delivered through those platforms."

John Howard, president, PruSelect Brokerage sees the advantages of the new application from the brokers' point of view. He notes, "The Online CDS enables Prudential to drastically reduce the new appointment cycle time allowing producers to close cases faster. Our distribution partners are sure to find this application an improvement over yesterday's paper-based process."

Prudential partnered with BISYS, a leading provider of business process outsourcing solutions for the financial services sector, to tailor the application. BISYS Education and Licensing Services created the Compliance Management SystemSM (CMS) in 2003 as an enterprise-wide licensing solution for carriers, broker-dealers and agencies. Prudential's Confidential Data Sheet expands the powerful CMS with added data collection functionality.

Eric P. Anderson, president of BISYS Education and Licensing Services, said, "It is rewarding that Prudential worked with BISYS to revolutionize its producer contracting process, and we welcome the opportunity to support its national network of insurance producers with the innovative capabilities of this powerful application."