Seven major Irish financial services firms are among those which have booked space at the Money 2000 financial and investment services exhibition at the RDS on May 19th-20th, its organisers said yesterday.

The exhibition will feature a programme of 20-minute seminars on investments, pensions, mortgages and taxation, and a "live" dealing room where visitors will be given a notional £1 million to invest in competition with other investors. The organisers are targeting one million consumers in an advertising campaign and 100,000 people by direct mail. Money 2000's managing director Ms Maura Byrne said the economic boom had led to increasing demand for money-management advice by newly prosperous consumers.