FDIC Deputy Director Donna Gambrell and Financial Author
           Nathan Dungan Speak at Special Financial Literacy Forum

MCLEAN, Va., Nov. 18 /PRNewswire/ -- Consumer advocacy group Consumer Action and leading credit card provider Capital One today announced that their joint Money Wi$e financial literacy partnership will provide free financial training to more than 80 non-profit community groups from across the Washington DC metro area.

The two-day seminar will kick off in Washington DC on November 20, 2003 and will focus on six areas of financial management for clients of community groups: banking, budgeting, understanding credit, credit repair, understanding bankruptcy and talking to teens about money. Consumer Action financial educators will lead the training sessions.

FDIC Deputy Director Donna Gambrell and Nathan Dungan, author of Prodigal Sons and Material Girls: How Not to Be Your Child's ATM, are the featured speakers at a special "Best Practices" forum on Thursday, November 20 at 3:30 p.m. at the Grand Hyatt Washington. Gambrell will speak about the FDIC's Money Smart program, a multilingual financial literacy initiative designed to promote financial independence and security. Dungan will discuss ideas and techniques for instilling successful attitudes and habits about family finances and personal money management. Additionally, a panel of non-profit representatives will describe how to improve financial literacy in diverse communities.

"We created Money Wi$e to provide consumers at all income levels with both the information and practical assistance they need to help better manage their finances," said Diana Don, Director of Financial Education at Capital One. "We are proud to continue to co-sponsor the Money Wi$e program. We believe that this training seminar, combined with our new materials on understanding bankruptcy and talking to teens about money, will help support the efforts of DC, Virginia and Maryland community organizations dedicated to engaging and educating at-risk consumers."

"We applaud the efforts of these Maryland, Virginia and Washington DC- based organizations to provide much-needed support and relevant information to their communities," said Ken McEldowney, Executive Director of Consumer Action. "This Money Wi$e seminar is just one way we are able to assist these groups to continue to do what they do best: helping neighbors in their communities to help themselves."

Money Wi$e: Materials, Training and Seminars

Consumer Action and Capital One launched the Money Wi$e partnership in November 2001. Since then, the program has produced and distributed a six- part series of Money Wi$e educational materials to provide consumers with the building blocks for developing and honing personal finance skills, from saving and budgeting to balancing a checkbook, understanding the basics of credit and credit repair and how parents can talk to teenagers about money. By providing free brochures in multiple languages (English, Spanish, Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese), the Money Wi$e program is able to address financial literacy across both income and ethnic barriers. More than one million brochures have been distributed to date.

In addition to distributing free materials online (www.consumer-action.org) and through a network of 6,500 CBOs nationwide, the Money Wi$e program also will provide a limited number of "train-the-trainer" seminars throughout the country during which Consumer Action staff members will meet with groups of CBOs to demonstrate how the Money Wi$e materials and curriculum can be used most effectively.

About Capital One

Headquartered in McLean, Virginia, Capital One Financial Corporation (NYSE: COF) is a holding company whose principal subsidiaries, Capital One Bank and Capital One, F.S.B., offer consumer lending products. Capital One's subsidiaries collectively had 47.4 million customers and $59.7 billion in managed loans outstanding as of December 31, 2002. Capital One, a Fortune 500 company, is one of the largest providers of MasterCard and Visa credit cards in the world. Capital One trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "COF" and is included in the S&P 500 index.

About Consumer Action

Consumer Action is a non-profit, membership-based organization founded in San Francisco in 1971. Consumer Action serves consumers nationwide by advancing consumer rights, referring consumers to complaint-handling agencies and publishing multilingual educational materials. Consumer Action also advocates for consumers in the media and before lawmakers and annually conducts comparison surveys for consumers on credit cards, banking issues and telecommunications issues.