Goldman Sachs to support CLS/ICAP joint venture for global FX markets

CLS Group, and Traiana, an ICAP company (IAP.L), announced today that Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) has become the latest bank to support their joint venture which is set to provide trade aggregation services to participants active in the over-the-counter FX market. The joint venture was initially announced in April 2009 between CLS Group, the global industry standard for FX settlement services, and ICAP, the world's leading interdealer broker.

Goldman Sachs joins a founder group of seven banks that have committed support to the joint venture comprising Bank of America (NYSE: BAC), Credit Suisse (NYSE:CS), Citigroup  (NYSE:C), Deutsche Bank (XETRA: DBKGn.DE / NYSE: DB), J.P. Morgan (NYSE:JPM), Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) and Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS.L).

As FX continues to grow as an asset class, this initiative will help to address the rapid increase in volumes by an expanding community including hedge funds, algorithmic traders, and retail and institutional participants. The joint venture will enable a reduction in operational risk, reduce post trade costs and both rationalise and consolidate legacy post-trade processes throughout the  global FX markets.

Traiana, an ICAP company, is providing the technology infrastructure to the venture using its market-standard Traiana Harmony network which will be rolled out to participating firms following regulatory approval.

Rob Close, Chief Executive Officer of CLS Group and President and CEO of CLS Bank  International said: "The addition of Goldman Sachs demonstrates the continued and widespread industry support for the service and I am delighted by the expansion of the founder group of banks. This further expansion in participation reinforces the service proposition and scale of  benefits for the group."

Gil Mandelzis, Traiana's Chief Executive Officer said: "Goldman Sachs is an important and welcome addition to the initiative. We are all engaged in re-designing the post-trade landscape."

For further information please contact

CLS Group
Jonathan Butterfield, Director, Communications  CLS Group +44 (0)20 7971 5709 corpcom@clsgroup.com
Caroline Parker - FD +44 (0)20 7269 7295 caroline.parker@fd.com

Traiana

Andrew Marshall, Fishburn Hedges +44 (0)20 7544 3065

ICAP
Mike Sheard, Director of Corporate Affairs ICAP +44 (0)20 7050 7103
Candice Adam, Corporate Communications - ICAP +44 (0)20 7050 7104

Notes to editors

About CLS

CLS Bank provides the largest multi-currency cash settlement system, eliminating settlement risk for over half the world's foreign exchange payment instructions. Owned by the foreign exchange community, CLS delivers greater operational efficiency when settling payment instructions related to trades executed in six traded financial instruments and in 17 major currencies (US Dollar, euro, UK Pound, Japanese Yen, Swiss Franc, Canadian Dollar, Australian Dollar, Swedish Krona, Danish Krone, Norwegian Krone, Singapore Dollar, Hong Kong Dollar, New Zealand Dollar, Korean Won, South African Rand, Israeli Shekel and Mexican Peso). CLS Settlement is the only means by which settlement risk can be eliminated with finality using a unique combination of payment versus payment in central bank funds, multilateral payment netting and a standard legal framework, supported by a robust and resilient infrastructure. CLS Bank is based in New York and is an Edge Corporation bank supervised by the Federal Reserve. For further information, please visit the CLS website at www.cls-group.com. CLS and the CLS logo are registered trademarks of CLS UK Intermediate Holdings Ltd.

About Traiana, Inc.
Traiana Inc. (www.traiana.com), an ICAP company, provides global banks, broker/dealers, buy-side firms and e-trading platforms with solutions to automate post trade processing of financial transactions.

Traiana's Harmony network is used by over 50 of the world's leading financial market participants and has become the market standard for post-trade processing of foreign exchange transactions. Traiana is headquartered in New York City with offices in London and Tel Aviv.

ICAP
ICAP plc (www.icap.com) is the world's premier voice and electronic interdealer broker and the source of global market information and commentary for professionals in the international financial markets. The Group is active in the wholesale markets in interest rates, credit, commodities, foreign exchange and equity derivatives. ICAP has an average daily transaction volume in excess of US$2.3 trillion, more than 40% of which is electronic. ICAP plc was added to the FTSE 100 Index on 30 June 2006.