24th June, 2008
Fidessa delivers ultra low-latency LSE data to over 200 clients

London – 24th June, 2008 - Fidessa group plc (LSE: FDSA), provider of the Fidessa and Fidessa LatentZero trading, market data and global connectivity solutions, today announced that it has delivered data from the London Stock Exchange (LSE), with the lowest latency available, for over 200 of its customers. In line with the launch of the new “Performance Channels” service from the LSE, Fidessa undertook a major re-development of its internal systems to handle this new delivery mechanism for exchange data, successfully launching the system live into production on the day the LSE switched on its service.

Phil Beevers, head of infrastructure development at Fidessa, comments: “Our strategy is to deliver the lowest latency solutions possible to the widest community, and so it was vital that we were able to offer the benefits of this new service to our customers. While it required some major re-architecting of the way we process information, we were committed to providing those of our customers who receive LSE data via Fidessa with the optimum delivery service available from day one.”

Commenting on the volume of price updates across Europe - now three times the level recorded only one year ago - Beevers adds: “Reducing latency is one part of the problem, but just as important is the need for Fidessa to keep up that performance throughout the trading day and then record every price tick for historical analysis as part of our algorithmic trading and compliance solutions.”

Performance Channels, the LSE’s new delivery mechanism for Infolect data, is delivered over 100 megabit lines and provides an ultra low-latency feed of LSE market data, effectively removing the throttles applied to the exchange’s standard Service Channels at times of peak trading activity. Although an optional service from the LSE, Performance Channels has been fully implemented by Fidessa such that its clients now seamlessly benefit from the increased performance.

Commenting on Fidessa’s service, Wendy Morgan, Head of Real Time Data at the London Stock Exchange, said: “As trading volumes grow and latency becomes more crucial, it is essential that our customers have a wide variety of options when choosing to connect to the London Stock Exchange's markets. We therefore welcome Fidessa's investment in delivering their service in parallel with the launch of Performance Channels. It ensures that market participants have low latency access to our markets and demonstrates the strength of the partnership between Fidessa and the London Stock Exchange."

Beevers adds: “Working in close partnership with the LSE, the Fidessa development team have been at the forefront of testing this new service and in the onward provision of this low-latency data delivery to clients. Many suppliers talk about low latency and try to demonstrate their claims in “laboratory” conditions. At Fidessa we are able to demonstrate our unique operational and service capabilities once again by delivering an unrivalled low-latency solution into live production to over 200 clients in one go."

Fidessa is committed to providing the lowest latency and highest performance trading, market data and connectivity solutions to the financial marketplace globally. The Fidessa product suite serves over 22,000 users at around 520 clients around the world, and is used by over 85% of global, tier-one equity brokers.

About LSE Performance Channels
Performance Channels are high speed delivery mechanisms that increase the rate at which data can be sent out to the market.

Performance Channels are of particular benefit to customers who need to have the lowest latency connectivity to the Exchange during peak trading periods. The service offers a reduced latency, high speed delivery mechanism, which increases the throttles that are necessary on Service Channels to provide a managed service.

Performance Channels will also have a new liquidity aligned structure for the UK data channels, to increase the efficiency of market data delivery and optimise the way in which messages are distributed across channels.

The Exchange’s current Service Channel throttling policy protects customers’ connections and systems from high volumes of data overflowing their Extranex connection. This can mean that during extremely busy periods Service Channels can be subject to minor latency as the high volume of messages being disseminated are “throttled” back in order to protect customer systems and networks from these high data spikes.

Although these high data spikes in Infolect real-time data are relatively infrequent, they can result during times of high trading activity. Performance Channels effectively remove the throttles by increasing the available bandwidth for the data to ensure it is disseminated as it arrives - unshaped.

To receive the service customers will need to have ordered and migrated to an Extranex 100mb connection.

The full Performance Channels service was launched on 9 June 2008.

About Fidessa group

Fidessa group is a world-leading supplier of multi-asset trading, portfolio analysis, decision support, investment compliance, market data and global connectivity solutions for both the buy-side and sell-side globally. Available as a simple workstation or as an integrated application suite, the Fidessa and Fidessa LatentZero products are built on the clear vision of providing the richest functionality, coverage and distribution to the financial markets community.

The Fidessa suite is used by 85% of tier-one, global equity brokers providing sophisticated multi-asset trading, market data, order management and execution capabilities to all tiers of the sell-side.

The Fidessa LatentZero suite is used by the world’s largest asset management firms through to smaller specialist managers and hedge funds, and provides comprehensive portfolio analysis, real-time P&L, what-if analysis, investment compliance, order and execution management, and post trade processing tools, across all asset classes, to all tiers of the buy-side.

Fidessa’s global network carries over 130 million messages a month covering DMA, Care and Algorithmic orders, Indications of Interest and FIX Allocations between over 1,800 buy-sides and 310 brokers across 100 markets worldwide.

Head-quartered in London and with offices in New York, Boston, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Paris, Toronto and San Francisco, Fidessa group serves 22,000 users across 600 clients globally. Fidessa group was founded in 1981, has revenues of around US$350m, employs over 1,200 people and has been fully listed (LSE:FDSA) since 1997.

For further information, please contact:

Alastair Turner
Aspectus PR (PR Agency)
+44 (0) 20 7487 8443
alastair@aspectuspr.co.uk

Fidessa® is a registered trademark of Fidessa Group plc
All product and company names herein may be trademarks of their registered owners.

Fidessa® is a registered trademark of Fidessa Group plc
All product and company names herein may be trademarks of their registered owners.

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