EUROCLEAR COMPLETES XTRAKTER ACQUISITION

Posted April 29, 2009

BRUSSELS and LONDON – Euroclear has closed its acquisition of Xtrakter Ltd., the subsidiary of the International Capital Markets Association (ICMA) that is the provider of the TRAX trade matching and reporting system.

Xtrakter, which also provides fixed-income business and reference data, will become a sister company to the Euroclear group’s international and national central securities depositories, and EMXCo.

“Our joint efforts will make it possible to automate trade information flows from matching, using the TRAX system, through to settlement at Euroclear,” says Ignace R. Combes, Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Euroclear SA/NV. “We will eliminate fragmentation and trade-matching duplication, while reducing costs and settlement fails. The complementary services offered by Xtrakter and Euroclear will be instrumental in further reducing risks, which is vital given today’s challenging market conditions.”

The Xtrakter business complements Euroclear Bank’s OTC trade matching and routing service and the trade reporting service provided by Euroclear UK and Ireland.

“As part of the Euroclear group, Xtrakter’s pre-settlement expertise, combined with Euroclear’s highly efficient transaction-settlement capabilities, will provide a competitively priced, full straight-through processing service,” says Kevin Milne, Chief Executive Officer of Xtrakter. “Together, we will help our clients further reduce their post-trade costs by streamlining processes, leveraging technology and extending existing services, such as trade reporting, into new areas.”