OMGEO REPORTS BOOM IN FIXED-INCOME TRADING TRAFFIC

Posted March 24, 2009

NEW YORK – Trade processing, risk mitigation and operational services provider Omgeo LLC reports significant momentum in its fixed-income trade processing traffic. In addition to record volumes for both January and February 2009, Omgeo’s total 2008 fixed-income allocation volumes via Omgeo OASYS, the US domestic allocation and confirmation offering, exceeded the previous year’s by 32 percent, with a record 3.3 million total allocations. Previous figures include 2.5 million total fixed-income allocations via OASYS in 2007 and two million in 2006.

“Given the challenging market conditions, we continue to see strong fixed-income demand and interest in 2009,” said Kevin Arthur, Director of Fixed Income Markets, Omgeo. “Further automating fixed-income trade processing to facilitate risk and cost reduction and increase efficiency are major objectives within our client community. Omgeo is pleased to play a key role in supporting the industry in achieving these objectives, as today more than ever it is critical to ensure that solutions meet the specific pain points of industry participants.”

The recent surge in fixed-income volumes is particularly reflected in the increase in corporate bond traffic seen across Omgeo OASYS systems; corporate bond allocations are up 55 percent year-over-year through February 2009. Demand for these instruments has been strong due to a combination of the credit markets thawing for issuers in January and February and the appealing wide spreads to Treasuries vis-à-vis perceived risk for the buy-side. Clients leveraging Omgeo OASYS for corporate and municipal bonds benefit from the direct electronic pathway after confirmation to settlement at DTCC.

“Particularly in today’s volatile markets, it is absolutely important for us to have access to automated fixed-income processing,” says Babu Sonti, Chief Technology Officer, Summit Investment Partners. “Omgeo has worked tirelessly over the past several years to ensure that its offerings consider the specific needs of the community when it comes to fixed-income processing. They’ve done a fantastic job of increasing awareness among the buy- and sell-side to bring the benefits of risk mitigation and reduced costs associated with automating operations to the industry at large.”