BOAT CONSORTIUM SELECTS BUSINESS AND TECHNOLOGY PARTNERS

“BOAT”, a consortium of nine investment banks launched to address regulatory changes in the financial markets with respect to pre- and post-trade market data provisions, today announced its selection of Cinnober Financial Technology (“Cinnober”) as technology provider and Markit Group Limited (“Markit”) as business partner. Cinnober will provide the software that will form the basis of the BOAT platform and will supply hosting and operational services; Markit will manage substantially all the business operations of BOAT.

Cinnober is a provider of state-of-the-art technology for marketplace systems, post-trade management and trading applications, all based on the TRADExpress platform. Markit is the leading industry source of independent data, portfolio valuations and OTC derivative trade processing for the global financial and commodities markets.

BOAT was initiated to help reduce market participants’ costs by providing the pre- and post-trade reporting facilities required of investment firms as a result of the European Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (“MiFID”), which will come into force on 1st November 2007. BOAT will provide services to European equity dealers and will collect, validate, store, manage and distribute the requisite quote and trade report data over a robust, real-time platform that will enable them to meet regulatory requirements.

BOAT will create a unique database of trade information that will be valuable to both sell-side and buy-side organisations in developing trading and investment strategies. BOAT plans to provide access to this database via market data vendors. The BOAT platform will be open to all market participants in order to help them achieve MiFID compliance in pre- and post-trade reporting. It is planned to recognise the value of contributed data within the commercial arrangements to be put in place with service participants.

Duncan Paterson, Managing Partner of Cygnet Consulting, speaking on behalf of all consortium members, said: “The consortium is pleased to announce the appointment of Cinnober and Markit as technology and business partners to BOAT. Both companies have proven excellence in their given fields, and we look forward to working with them to provide the European markets with a MiFID-compliant platform. BOAT will allow financial institutions to meet MiFID’s trade reporting requirements in an increasingly regulated and competitive business environment.”

Lance Uggla, Chief Executive Officer of Markit, commented: “We are very happy to have been selected by BOAT, an initiative which will be central to the European markets once MiFID comes into play. It has always been Markit’s goal to bring transparency and operational efficiency to the financial markets, and we are excited about our role in this new chapter.”

Jan Arpi, Chief Executive Officer of Cinnober, stated: “We are delighted to have been chosen to provide the technology and operational services for BOAT in the face of stiff competition. We look forward to applying our deep knowledge of financial transaction technology to provide BOAT with a next-generation solution to meet the forthcoming MiFID requirements.”