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Abbey Financial Markets Chooses DTCC for Global Corporate Action Information

London, 8 March 2007 - The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) today announced that Abbey Financial Markets has chosen DTCC's Global Corporate Action Validation Service (GCA VS) to automate, streamline and reduce risk for corporate actions.

Abbey Financial Markets is the latest customer to join a growing international group of customers who have selected GCA VS to provide global corporate actions data. The GCA Validation Service provides a centralised source of corporate action announcements for equities and fixed-income instruments traded in more than 160 countries in Europe, Asia-Pacific and the Americas. The service provides the broadest corporate actions coverage of any service in the world.

"We believe DTCC has the infrastructure and resources in place globally to support the industry's move to a single, standardised source," said Steve Jennett, Head of Operations at Abbey Financial Markets. "With GCA Validation Service, we'll be able to ensure the consistency and quality of corporate action information used across our organisation. Timely corporate action information is essential in our front-office to identify trading opportunities, and in the back-office to drive client notifications, while helping to mitigate some of the processing risk for corporate actions."

Abbey Financial Markets recently went live with the ISO 15022 version of GCA Validation Service. The ISO 15022 international messaging standard, which is used by many firms internationally, is offered in addition to a proprietary format of GCA VS and a real-time Web browser.

"DTCC is committed to delivering a world-class solution for corporate action announcement information. We're very proud to have been selected as Abbey Financial Markets' global provider," said James Femia, DTCC managing director and head of the Global Corporate Action business. "We're investing substantial resources to ensure GCA VS is delivering comprehensive, accurate and timely information that meets the global requirements of our customers."

Abbey Financial Markets joins a growing number of other major global financial institutions and buy-side firms using the GCA VS, including Credit Suisse First Boston, JP Morgan Securities, Merrill Lynch, Raymond James, First Clearing and UBS.

In 2005, the GCA Validation Service became the first service of its kind to provide customers with worldwide reach when it opened a service centre in Shanghai, providing round-the-clock coverage. This Asian presence complements GCA Validation Service centres in London and New York. The service allows customers to offload functions that are largely manual and non-standardised, and thus error-prone, risky and costly.

Corporate actions are one of the last significant areas of risk associated with manual and non-standardised processing in the securities industry. According to a 2004 study sponsored by DTCC and conducted by Oxera, an economics consultancy in Europe, the risk from just one mishandled corporate action event could impact thousands of investor clients. It could also cost tens of millions of euros for individual securities firms - and multi-billion euros for the global securities industry.

About Abbey Financial Markets
Abbey Financial Markets is the brand name for Abbey National Treasury Services plc, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Abbey National plc. Abbey is one of the UK's leading personal finance services company and a part of Santander, the largest bank in the Euro zone and the 9th largest in the world by market capitalisation.

As well as managing Abbey's treasury function, Abbey Financial Markets is a major provider of structured investments, underpinned by its derivatives trading activities, supplying products for Abbey and many other UK financial services companies. Abbey Financial Markets is also a major player in Securities Financing and in the International Money Markets and Capital Markets.

About DTCC
The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), through its subsidiaries, provides clearance, settlement and information services for equities, corporate and municipal bonds, government and mortgage-backed securities and over-the-counter derivatives. In addition, DTCC is a leading processor of mutual funds and insurance transactions, linking funds and carriers with their distribution networks. DTCC's depository provides custody and asset servicing for 2.8 million securities issues from the United States and 100 other countries and territories, valued at $36 trillion. Last year, DTCC settled more than $1.5 quadrillion in securities transactions. DTCC has operating facilities in multiple locations in the United States and overseas. For more information on DTCC, visit www.dtcc.com.