Quadriserv and Eurex Clearing Announce Co-operation on Transatlantic Central Counterparty for Securities Lending

Quadriserv, a leading North American provider of innovative securities lending services, and Eurex Clearing, Europe’s leading clearing house, announced today that they are co-operating to provide central counterparty (CCP) clearing and settlement services for securities lending of European equities. Eurex Clearing will provide its state-of-the art CCP services to Quadriserv’s new securities lending platform, AQS™.

Pursuant to the signed Letter of Intent, the Quadriserv / Eurex Clearing partnership will initially create services for trading, clearing and settlement in UK, German and Swiss equities. Eurex Clearing, as central clearing provider, will mitigate counterparty risk and facilitate settlement processing for all clearing members. AQS will provide fully-automated trading and middle office functionality to facilitate centralized, anonymous borrowing and lending activity. This integration will directly benefit European customers by enabling seamless accessibility to AQS, which provides enhanced access, transparency and reporting capabilities to all market participants.

“The steady progress towards a centralized, structured marketplace for securities lending continues unabated, and we firmly believe that the AQS securities lending platform has become an important part of this evolving landscape,” said Thomas J. Perna, Quadriserv’s Chief Executive Officer. “To that end, we are pleased to complement our U.S. capabilities with the addition of our Eurex partnership, which greatly expands the reach and distribution of our AQS platform to European markets.”

Thomas Book, member of the Eurex Executive Board responsible for clearing, said, “We are very pleased to cooperate with Quadriserv to further expand our industry-leading clearing services. The combination of the AQS platform and our securities lending offering highlights Eurex Clearing’s leading role in creating a European market standard.”

The Quadriserv / Eurex relationship advances important organizational objectives of both firms. This arrangement complements and expands Quadriserv’s previously announced clearing and settlement relationship with The Options Clearing Corporation (“OCC”) for U.S. equities, which will commence U.S. operations in early 2009.

The co-operation also re-emphasizes Eurex Clearing’s strategic expansion of its CCP services into securities lending. Europe’s leading clearing house previously announced its plans to launch a securities lending clearing service with Clearstream in the second quarter of 2009.