JPMorgan Joins Yieldbroker’s Online Trading Platform

May 29, 2008

Jeff Herbert-Smith, Managing Director, Head of Fixed Income for JPMorgan in Australia, said: “As a global leader in fixed income markets, JPMorgan is committed to providing a breadth of innovative electronic solutions and trading venues to our clients worldwide. We are delighted to join Yieldbroker and view this partnership as a strategic component of our offering to our Australasian clients. We look forward to co-operating with our partners to further develop the platform.”

Sydney, May 29, 2008 – JPMorgan today announced it has joined the Yieldbroker partnership and its online trading platform with a stake equal to the existing four owners. Current members of the platform include ABN Amro, Citi, Deutsche Bank and Macquarie Bank. JPMorgan is will begin operating in Yieldbroker’s dealer-to-client market effective today.

The co-operatively owned venture is the dominant electronic trading platform in the Australian debt markets, providing institutional investors with the ability to view live indicative prices and request competitive two-way markets in over 700 debt securities.

Yieldbroker is currently expanding into the interdealer market following the company’s recent successful launch of dealer-to-dealer markets in various debt security classes. Yieldbroker remains committed to expanding its dealer to client, and dealer to dealer offerings in other interest rate, debt and credit products.

Jeff Herbert-Smith, Managing Director, Head of Fixed Income for JPMorgan in Australia, said: “As a global leader in fixed income markets, JPMorgan is committed to providing a breadth of innovative electronic solutions and trading venues to our clients worldwide. We are delighted to join Yieldbroker and view this partnership as a strategic component of our offering to our Australasian clients. We look forward to co-operating with our partners to further develop the platform.”

In welcoming JPMorgan to the company, Paul Bide, Chairman of Yieldbroker, said: “We are very pleased that JPMorgan has joined our partnership. We look forward to continually building the platform with their input and involvement. Our platform provides a simple, straightforward service to institutional investors in the asset class.”

Yieldbroker’s General Manager, Richard Swift, added: “The addition of JPMorgan means that our clients are now able to simultaneously request competitive prices from an extended panel of market makers. The ongoing credit crisis has made plain the high value in being able to source liquidity - with most of the leading liquidity providers now consolidated on our trading platform, Yieldbroker’s clients have access to a depth of liquidity in debt securities unparalleled in Australia.”

About Yieldbroker

Founded in 1999 as a co-operative venture between leading debt market participants, Yieldbroker was established to provide the systems infrastructure, regulatory framework and compliance oversight necessary to facilitate the growth of orderly electronic marketplaces in Australian and New Zealand debt securities and derivatives.

Yieldbroker’s dealer-to-client market began operation in May 2001. A free, easy-to-use service, that offered institutional investors enhanced price discovery and superior deal execution, Yieldbroker quickly became the dominant electronic trading platform in the Australian debt marketplace.

Initially built as a simple call-out system in government and semi-government debt securities, product coverage was expanded in 2002 to include AUD denominated corporate, supra-national, agency and sovereign fixed rate securities with FRNs added to the platform in 2004.

An extensive re-build of the trading platform was initiated in 2004 aimed at improving underlying flexibility to enable the system to be customised to meet the evolving requirements of market participants. The release of the Yieldbroker DEBTS trading platform in 2006 allowed an increasingly complex array of financial transactions to be undertaken in a broader range of debt securities and derivatives. The system’s enhanced inter-operability also increased Yieldbroker’s ability to pursue straight-through-processing solutions.

In 2004 Yieldbroker also became the first fixed income trading platform to be awarded an Australian Market Licence, the same regulatory regime under which the ASX operates, authorising Yieldbroker to operate both a dealer-to-client market and a dealer-to-dealer market.

The dealer-to-dealer market opened in 2007 with Yieldbroker capturing a substantial share of market turnover in government and semi-government securities and AUD corporate, supra, agency and sovereign fixed rate securities. Coverage was extended to include FRNs in early 2008 with a swaps and CDS dealing platform currently under development.

In 2007 Yieldbroker also extended its coverage into Asia through an interface with Reuters’ RTFI trading platform, giving Asian-based institutional investors direct access to the Yieldbroker dealer panel when trading AUD and NZD debt securities.

About JPMorgan

JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM) is a leading global financial services firm with assets of $1.6 trillion and operations in more than 60 countries. The firm is a leader in investment banking, financial services for consumers, small business and commercial banking, financial transaction processing, asset management, and private equity. A component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, JPMorgan Chase serves millions of consumers in the United States and many of the world’s most prominent corporate, institutional and government clients under its JPMorgan and Chase brands. Information about the firm is available at www.jpmorgan.com.au.

 
 

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