24 January 2007
 

SwapsWire announced today that Capitalia SpA (Capitalia) is the first Italian bank using its system to automate OTC equity and interest rate derivative trade confirmations.   Capitalia started confirming interest rate swaps trade electronically in August 2006 and went live with equity options on SwapsWire in December.

Capitalia's derivative strategy has been focused on using innovative technology to help achieve its goals.   Capitalia trades OTC interest rate swaps on-screen using Bloomberg and TradeWeb's electronic trading systems.   Both systems are connected to SwapsWire meaning trades are instantly routed to SwapsWire for real-time legal confirmation within seconds.   These trades and others executed over the telephone are all electronically routed to Capitalia in a standard format on SwapsWire making confirmation quick and easy.

Seventeen dealers recently committed to improve their level of outstanding equity derivative confirmations in a letter to regulators.   Many of these dealers trade with Capitalia as a client.   One of the initiatives identified in the letter was the need for industry-agreed standard documentation and master confirmation agreements, which make individual transactions simpler to document.   

Giampaolo Argenio, COO at Capitalia in Rome said "We are pleased to be leading the way in Italy by using SwapsWire to have all trades fully confirmed by the end of the trading day.   After seeing the massive improvement in confirmation speed for swaps, we are excited to be able now to confirm equity options this way.   We will continue to use the best available technology to reduce our operational risk and to increase efficiency for these and any other eligible products.   We have written to all our brokers and asked them to sign master confirmation agreements and have received a positive response."

SwapsWire has been steadily increasing the array of OTC products supported, most recently extending support for various equity OTC products including variance swaps in Japan, and options in Asia ex-Japan.   By early 2007 all regions will be covered for single name and index options, swaps and variance swaps.    Also in early 2007 SwapsWire will support inflation swaps and non-deliverable currency interest rate swaps.

Chip Carver, SwapsWire's CEO, said "We are pleased our system has once again proven itself at Capitalia by helping it to achieve its objectives quickly and cost effectively.   It is very clear that the marketplace recognizes the value of efficiently confirming OTC trades as close to the time of execution as possible.   SwapsWire is enjoying strong growth in both trade volumes and the number of clients and we expect this to continue through 2007 as we continue to add products and features."

About SwapsWire

Since 2002, the SwapsWire system has been automating legal confirmation, trade capture, and broker confirmation for multiple OTC derivatives products including interest rate swaps, forward rate agreements, overnight index swaps, caps, floors, swaptions, credit default swaps, and equity derivatives.   Today hundreds of sell-side, buy-side, and inter-dealer broker sites in Europe, Asia and the USA use the system.  

SwapsWire supports trade workflow of all types, with integrated trade-date legal confirmation, avoiding the traditional need to separate trade-date workflow/checkout from legal confirmation.   Workflows supported include:

- Inter-dealer broker STP and confirmation
- Trade Capture
- Legal confirmation
- Prime Brokerage (Give-Up)
- Amendments, terminations, option exercise, corporate actions
- Allocations
- Novations

SwapsWire is owned by a consortium of 21 leading derivatives dealers: Bank of America, The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Ltd., Barclays Bank, Bayerische Hypo-und Vereinsbank, BNP Paribas, Calyon, Citigroup, IXIS Corporate and Investment Bank, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, HSBC Bank Plc, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Mizuho Capital Markets, Morgan Stanley, The Royal Bank of Scotland, Societe Generale, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, and UBS Investment Bank.

About Capitalia

Formed on July 1, 2002, The Capitalia Banking Group today is Italy's fourth largest banking group. With 28,203 employees and 1,948 branches across Italy and abroad, the Group offers its clientele a complete range of banking products and services. At September 30, 2006 the Capitalia Banking Group reported net profit of €804 million and shareholders' equity of €9,332 million.

Media Contacts:
SwapsWire     
Henry Hunter +44 (0) 20 7071 0119
Amy Mihalakis 07970 050 828

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