SEVENTH WIN IN A ROW FOR TRACE FINANCIAL CEMENTS INDUSTRY LEAD

Tuesday 8th March, 2005

Trace Financial Limited (part of Trace Group plc) today announced that its market leading financial messaging solutions Cloverleaf®finance, the application integration platform and Transformer, the data integration and dictionary-based transformation toolkit have been awarded the SWIFTReady GOLD label in the Financial EAI (Enterprise Application Integration) category for the seventh year.

Cloverleaf®finance allows disparate systems to share information and deliver seamless, non-invasive integration of internal systems both with each other and with external services. It is an 'Out-of-the-box' solution for interface management, message conversion, routing, message audit and has inbuilt testing capabilities.

"We are delighted to receive this coveted recognition of Cloverleaf®finance excellence for the seventh year in a row", said Nick Tonge, sales director of Trace Financial. He added, "Yet again, this puts Trace ahead of the game in terms of our software solutions, experience and ability to deliver. Our customers find it very reassuring to partner with the industry experts."

The SWIFTReady GOLD label also covers 'Transformer', Trace's new pure Java and XML based data dictionary transformation tool. It is designed to cope with new and constantly evolving message structures that are the day-to-day challenge representing greatest ongoing risk and cost to major financial institutions. Its unique approach allows business analysts (not just programmers) to control the system and business demands created by evolving messaging standards.

"We appreciate Trace Financial's enthusiasm and ability to quickly deliver SWIFT ready advanced technology to our clients leading to enhanced enterprise integration and customer value ," says Olivier Roucloux, EAI Industry Analyst at SWIFT. "We look forward to exploring new opportunities together with Trace Financial and are very pleased to award the SWIFTReady Gold Financial EAI label 2005 to their Cloverleaf®finance and Transformer products."

John Murphy, managing director of Trace Financial, said "Transformer's new approach is proven to be inherently more flexible to cope with the latest and evolving message structures. The co-existence of multiple messaging standards is no longer an issue. Achievement of SWIFTReady Gold status endorses not only its capabilities as a future-proof transformation tool, but also the real value delivered to the business community with this innovative technology".

To achieve the GOLD label for Financial EAI, products have to support the full SWIFT message library including Market Practice compliance for ISO15022 messages, demonstrate facilitation of Straight Through Processing (e.g. by transformation and routing capability) and offer various connection methods to the SWIFTNet network via SWIFTAlliance. Only software products that are compliant with all tests, including the proactive implementation of new SWIFT standards, receive the SWIFTReady GOLD label.

Editors Notes

About Cloverleaf®finance
Cloverleaf®finance is highly regarded and recognised as 'Best of Breed' by our top tier clients some of whom are processing in excess of two million mission critical messages daily. Key features are rapid time to market for new interfaces, exceptional resilience and scalability as well as very low cost of operation and ownership. Cloverleaf®finance allows disparate systems to share information delivering seamless, non-invasive integration of internal systems both with each other and with external services. 'Out of the box' and easy to use functionality covers interface management, message conversion, routing and inbuilt testing capability. STP is enabled with easy connectivity to the SWIFTAlliance product family, SWIFTNet, Euroclear, Crest, OMGEO, FIX and numerous other external and internal protocols. Similar support is provided for a wide range of programs, databases, objects using industry standard and proprietary messaging standards. Cloverleaf®finance incorporates powerful GUI-based implementation and monitoring tools which provide the most technically advanced integration tool-kit available today for message management in a complex environment. Cloverleaf®finance and Transformer also supports a means of cross-referencing the contents of a SWIFT message to its underlying business meaning as well as complete support for full message syntax and network validation requirements.
Cloverleaf® is a United States registered trademark of Quovadx, Inc

About Transformer
Transformer is Trace's new pure Java and XML based data dictionary transformation tool. It allows organizations effectively to manage the increasingly complex demands of new and evolving messaging standards which would otherwise represent substantial ongoing risk and cost. Its unique approach allows business analysts (not just programmers) to control the system demands created by evolving standards. Open technologies mean that this is achieved regardless of technical infrastructure. Transformer can be deployed alongside Cloverleaf®finance or independently within J2EE or a Web Services environment or as part of a Services Oriented Architecture (SOA).

About Trace Financial Ltd
Trace Financial Ltd is a wholly owned subsidiary of Trace Group plc. It supplies the financial sector with intelligent middleware, interfacing products, bespoke services and workflow solutions. Established in 1974, Trace Group plc is a London-based software and services supplier specialising in providing solutions for the banking, securities, re-insurance broking and property markets. Trace Group Plc was officially listed on the LSE in 1989.
www.tracegroup.com

About SWIFTReady Awards
SWIFTReady is an accreditation program run by SWIFT for various categories of software such as payment systems, reconciliation systems etc. Cloverleaf®finance and Transformer are categorised in the Financial EAI - Enterprise Application Integration segment, and signifies a specified level of interoperability with the SWIFT network.
www.swift.com

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