Markit and Calypso Join Forces to Reduce Operational Risk in OTC Derivative Markets

London and New York, 26 October 2006 - Markit Group Limited ("Markit"), the leading provider of independent data, valuations and OTC derivatives trade processing to the global financial and commodities markets, and Calypso Technology Inc, the market-leading provider of capital markets trading software solutions, today announced that Calypso is to integrate Markit Trade Processing into its software platform.

The alliance will dramatically improve the processing of over-the-counter (OTC) derivative transactions for mutual clients, whatever the asset class or complexity of the instrument. Markit and Calypso's broad user base, which includes the largest investment managers and dealers, will now have access to a single, automated workflow solution.

This partnership will enable users to pass data seamlessly from Calypso's trade capture system to Markit's trade processing platform thus automating a variety of post-trade services including trade day affirmation, DTCC trade confirmation, non-STP (Straight Through Processing) confirmation workflow and portfolio reconciliation. Markit Trade Processing also facilitates novation, termination and dispute resolution via Markit Connex, a secure instant messaging service.

The U.S. Federal Reserve met dealers and their regulators last month to discuss settlement backlogs and operational risks in the banks' OTC derivative businesses. Progress in tackling trade processing problems in the credit derivatives market was reviewed, while the need to improve operations in the equity derivatives market was highlighted.

Leo Schlinkert, Executive Vice President and Head of Trade Processing and Distribution at Markit, said: "Markit is very much focused on helping the industry achieve greater operational efficiency at a time of dramatic market growth in the OTC derivative markets and increased regulatory concern over the infrastructure supporting these markets. By linking our platform to industry utilities and leading vendors such as Calypso, we are able to pave the way for a more efficient marketplace. This will allow our clients to achieve true STP, making costly errors and backlogs a thing of the past."

Gerard Rafie, VP of Marketing at Calypso, commented: "What drew us to Markit was its unique trade processing solution that covers all OTC derivative products and asset classes across a broad set of services. We are delighted to be working with them to help address the operational problems that are besetting the privately traded marketplace, and to encourage the smooth development of these fast-growing, innovative markets."

At an OTC derivative trade processing roundtable hosted by Markit and The Banker magazine in July this year which brought together leading OTC derivative market participants, the DTCC, SwapsWire and the Financial Services Authority, Sean Taylor, EMEA regional head of client onboarding at UBS, stated: "Does operational efficiency now make you a winner in this business? Personally, I think so."

Markit Trade Processing was recently crowned Operations Management's Vendor of the Year 2006.

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About Markit

Markit Group Limited is the leading provider of independent data, portfolio valuations and OTC derivatives trade processing to the global financial and commodities markets. The company receives daily data contributions from over 70 dealing firms, and its services are used by over 600 institutions to enhance trading operations, reduce risk and manage compliance. Markit's recent acquisition of MarketXS, a leading provider of real-time technology and trading solutions to the financial services industry, will power the distribution of its data and services.

Markit's position in the derivatives markets has been acknowledged by the industry with numerous awards. In 2006, the company won Operations Management's Vendor of the Year award (Trade Processing); Financial News' Best Derivatives Data Solution and Best New Vendor Solution (Portfolio Valuations); Credit's Best Operational Support Services Provider; Inside Market Data's Reference Data Provider of the Year, and Company to Watch; Risk's Trading Initiative of the Year (Credit Event Fixings); and Structured Finance International's Editor's Award for Advancing Structured Finance. In 2005, Markit received International Securitisation Report's Editor's Award for Innovation; International Financing Review's Innovation of the Year (Credit Event Fixings); Financial News' Best Derivatives Data Provider; and Operations Management's Vendor of the Year award. For more information, see www.markit.com

Since inception in 1997, Calypso's focus is to provide financial institutions with a solid infrastructure for automating their trading desks. Based on robust, flexible, modern software technology that can be deployed rapidly and is capable of supporting a range of asset classes, Calypso's software is designed to provide the extensibility to meet the growing demands of an institution's business while also allowing the user to customize the Calypso software according to their needs. Calypso Technology, Inc. is an expanding organization with offices in ten locations worldwide. For more information, see www.calypso.com