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Pats Mets is right. Google ( and MSN, Yahoo, all the rest ) exist to sell ad space, and they do that by attracting users with quality search results. They're constantly changing their algorithms trying to improve the quality of their results.
A link is interpreted as a "vote" for what it points to. And different voters carry different weight. If Google thinks a link is there for a reason besides the content it links to, that counts less. I don't think places that take links blindly count nearly as much. The benefit of a link in your forum sig is if you show yourself to be knowledgeable and have interesting things to say, people reading the forum may check you out.
Google tells us they don't like pages with more than 100 links, and they don't like pages or networks set up for the sole purpose of having links. So I wouldn't be surprised if directory links counted less, especially ones with "link to use" text and maybe an input box with their address wrapped in html. Still, when I have nothing better to do, I'll add my site to directories. I figure it can't hurt, although it probably doesn't help a great deal, either.
My site is about photography, so I've written a few articles for sites like photosig and photo.net; your client's seems to be about financial services, and seems to have a global focus. It also covers news. So look into other sites that are related to one of these themes.
Email blog owners ( write actual letters - don't copy and paste ) introducing yourselfand some niche the site fills.
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