Markit Expands Customer Base In France

London, 12 January 2005 - Markit, the world's first integrated daily pricing service for global credit derivatives, cash credit instruments and syndicated loan pricing, has strengthened its European presence by signing contracts with eight leading financial institutions in France.

BNP Paribas, AXA Investment Managers, Calyon and IXIS Corporate & Investment Bank have signed contracts to receive credit data and RED; IXIS Asset Management, Natexis Asset Management, Société Générale Asset Management and Natexis Banques Populaires have signed contracts to receive credit data; Société Générale has signed a contract to receive RED.

Having firmly established itself as a leading data provider in the UK, Markit has successfully entered new markets throughout Europe, North America and Asia. With the addition of these institutions, Markit's client base now exceeds 250 firms worldwide. The RED service is now firmly established as the global reference entity standard for credit.

David Benarous, Portfolio and Structured Credit Manager at AXA Investment Managers said, "We have signed a global deal with Markit as we believe its product offering is second to none. Access to Markit data will enhance our ability to effectively value our CDS positions, while the rapid uptake of RED is a clear indication of the need for precise reference entity identification in the CDS market. Not only does RED ease the settlement process, but it will save us money by preventing trade mismatches."

Lance Uggla, CEO of Markit comments, "These new contracts reinforce Markit's proposition to French institutions and will accelerate the company's growing presence in Europe. We are seeing rapid uptake of our product offering in the region, and feel privileged to be working with such a prestigious group of financial institutions."

For further information, please contact:

Notes to editors

About Markit

Founded early in 2001 with the support of contributing data partners ABN AMRO, Bank of America, Citigroup, CSFB, Deutsche Bank, Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, TD Securities, and UBS, Markit currently receives daily credit default swap (CDS) pricing on over 4,000 issues and receives pricing on over 27,000 cash securities. Partner banks and contributing data providers now total over 40 institutions globally. These institutions feed current and historical credit data into the Markit system on a daily basis, facilitating better decision-making and credit risk management within banks' credit operations.