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Euronext.liffe Buys CScreen To Offer First Straight Through Processing Service For The Wholesale Equity Derivatives Market

Date 19/04/2005

Euronext.liffe, the international derivatives business of Euronext, announced today that it has bought CScreen Ltd., the provider of CScreen, a leading pre-trade price discovery platform for wholesale equity derivatives, from Cinnober Financial Technology AB.

The acquisition of CScreen is the basis of Euronext.liffe’s new wholesale service, which will offer customers for the first time ever straight-through processing (STP), from pre-trade price discovery to post-trade booking and administration. This unique service will automate existing manual processes inherent in OTC transactions, giving customers a flexible, secure, simple and significantly cheaper way of conducting their wholesale equity derivatives business.

Hugh Freedberg, Chief Executive of Euronext.liffe said: “This service will offer customers a comprehensive means of carrying out their wholesale business – something which has never been available in either the OTC or listed markets before. By offering straight-through processing and a competitive fee structure the service will make trading easier and help reduce costs and operational risk.”

Cinnober will deliver all the components for the new service as well as continue to provide technical development for CScreen. Nils-Robert Persson, Chairman of Cinnober, said, “CScreen has developed a strong community of users since it was launched and is gaining an increasing foothold in the marketplace. When CScreen is linked to automated post-trade matching, administration and clearing services the whole offer is both innovative and extremely compelling. We are excited about working with Euronext.liffe to deliver this new service.”

The service will cover a broad range of European blue-chip stocks and indices, including Belgian, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Swiss and UK products.

The OTC market is several times the size of the exchange-traded market and is growing strongly. The new service is designed to capture an increasing amount of this off-exchange business.

Euronext.liffe’s provision of the service is subject to final FSA regulatory approval.