CHICAGO, April 4 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- OptionsXpress Holdings, Inc. today announced that Tom Patrick, Scott Wald, and Bruce Evans have been appointed to the optionsXpress Board of Directors. The appointment of three independent directors to the optionsXpress Board is a key step in fulfilling the company's commitment to comply with updated corporate governance regulations requiring a majority of independent directors.

Mr. Patrick served as Executive Vice Chairman of Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc. from 2002 to his retirement in August 2003. From 2000-2002 and 1989-1990, Mr. Patrick served as Merrill Lynch's Chief Financial Officer. Mr. Patrick also served in several executive roles in the firm's Special Advisory Services Group and Equity Markets Group. He currently serves on the Board of Directors for Deere & Company, Computer Sciences Corporation, and Baldwin & Lyons, Inc. Mr. Patrick received a B.S. in Economics from Rutgers University, an M.B.A. in Finance from the University of Pittsburgh, and completed all course work for a doctorate in Finance at Northwestern University.

Mr. Wald is currently the founder and President of Romar Services, L.L.C., a private investment firm. Mr. Wald is also the founder, and former President and Chief Executive Officer of ASAP Software Express. Prior to founding ASAP, Wald was in product management for Hewlett-Packard Laser Printer operations. He is currently on the board of SurePayroll, a Web-based payroll system, which he launched in 2000. Wald was named one of "America's Hot Young Entrepreneurs" by Fortune and an "Entrepreneur of the Year" by INC. Magazine. He received a B.S. and an M.B.A. from Arizona State University.

Mr. Evans is currently a Managing Partner at Summit Partners, a venture capital and private equity firm, where he has worked since 1986. Previously, he held a senior position at IBM Corporation. His past and present board directorships include DSET Corporation, FleetCor Technologies, Inc., Hittite Microwave Corporation, Hyperion Software Corporation, InstallShield Software Corporation, Jamba! AG, Microbank Software, Inc., OPNET Technologies, Inc., Pediatrix Medical Group, Inc., Renal Treatment Centers, Inc., Unica Corporation, and World Wide Technology Holding Co., Inc. Mr. Evans received a B.E. in Mechanical Engineering and Economics from Vanderbilt University and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School. Mr. Evans will replace Chris Dean on the Board of Directors.

"We are pleased to welcome three independent members to the optionsXpress Board," commented James Gray, Chairman of the Board of optionsXpress. "Each individual brings deep operational and financial experience to our Board and will help us deliver value to our shareholders. Their combined experience building and managing rapidly growing companies will be invaluable to optionsXpress as we continue to build upon our position as the leader in the online options trading market."

About optionsXpress Holdings, Inc.

OptionsXpress Holdings, Inc. provides innovative securities brokerage products and services for investor education, strategy evaluation and trade execution. Through its subsidiaries optionsXpress, an online brokerage, and brokersXpress, an online trading and reporting platform for independent investment professionals, the company offers a wide range of investor tools, superior customer service and competitive commissions.

This press release may contain forward-looking statements. These statements relate to future events or our future financial performance and involve known and unknown risks. We urge you to carefully consider these risks in evaluating the information in this press release, including risks related to general economic conditions, regulatory developments, the competitive landscape, the volume of securities trading generally or by our customers specifically and other risks described in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In some cases, you can identify forward- looking statements by terminology such as "may," "will," "should," "expects," "intends," "plans," "anticipates," "believes," "estimates," "predicts," "potential," "continue" or the negative of these terms or other comparable terminology. These statements are only predictions. Actual events or results may differ materially. The forward-looking statements made in this press release relate only to events as of the date of this release. We undertake no ongoing obligation to update these statements.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION: AT ASHTON PARTNERS: AT SCANLON CORPORATE COMMUNICATIONS: Kimberly Bartholomew Josh Inglis Investor Inquiries Media Inquiries (312) 553-4296 (312) 822-9299

CONTACT: Investor Inquiries, Kimberly Bartholomew of Ashton Partners,
+1-312-553-4296, or Media Inquiries, Josh Inglis of Scanlon Corporate
Communications, +1-312-822-9299