New Savings Bond Wizard Adds Features Can Now Keep Track of I Bonds and More!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

March 1, 1999

Treasury's Bureau of the Public Debt released today a new version of the popular Savings Bond Wizard program offering several new features to help investors manage their savings bonds portfolios.

The Savings Bond Wizard program, an easy-to-use Windows program, became instantly popular when introduced in 1996. Now more than 800,000 people are using the Wizard to manage their savings bond investments. Several of the new features respond to suggestions made by Wizard users.

The Savings Bond Wizard version 2.0 adds these new features:

• Keeps track of the values of I Bonds, as well as Series E, EE and savings notes;
• Sorts your savings bonds inventory by serial number, issue date, denomination or series in ascending or descending order;
• Computes your bonds' yield to date, next accrual date, and final maturity date;
• Provides an inventory value -- including bonds less than 6 months old --and a redemption value -- excluding bonds less than 6 months old.
• Highlights entries for bonds that are not eligible for payment or that have reached final maturity;
• Displays the last 5 files opened for easier access to them;
• Lets you know if a duplicate serial number is entered;
• Allows you to automatically open your last used inventory;
• Includes new help files with troubleshooting tips.

The Savings Bond Wizard requires Windows 3.1 or higher and 2.6 megabytes of disk space. Version 2.0 of the Wizard can be downloaded free of charge from the U.S. Treasury's Bureau of the Public Debt website: www.savingsbonds.gov.