New York, June 1, 2011 – Avox Limited, a subsidiary of The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), has been awarded “Best Counterparty Data Provider” by the readers of Inside Reference Data for the third year in a row.

The awards, which were held in New York City, recognize industry excellence within the market data, reference data and enterprise data management sectors. Nominees are selected by the editorial staff of Inside Market Data and Inside Reference Data, with the winners chosen by the readers of the two publications in 22 categories. Readers consist of operations professionals at investment banks, securities firms, institutional investors, brokers and exchanges. Nominated in the category with Avox were: Bloomberg, Interactive Data, SIX Telekurs, Standard & Poors, and Thomson Reuters.

“Readers of Inside Reference Data and Inside Market Data voted for Avox as Best Counterparty Data Provider, reflecting the vendor's strong position in the market. Avox has now won this award three consecutive years,” said Tine Thoresen, editor of Inside Reference Data. “The Inside Market Data and Inside Reference Data awards recognize industry excellence in the financial information market.”

Avox, as it has since beginning its operations, employs a collaborative model that has client firms contributing intelligence relating to changes they see impacting business entity data. These changes are sent to Avox daily and are verified by Avox’s team of data experts. Most of the changes made to the records in the Avox database of counterparties are originally triggered by clients who contribute information on the change. According to Ken Price, CEO of Avox, this makes the information the most up-to-date source of global company information possible.

“Winning this award again validates that our unique collaborative model for maintaining business entity data works better than any other method,” said Price.

DTCC purchased Avox in 2010 and has been integrating its services internally while marketing it to its client community around the world. A key driver for the purchase was the need for regulators around the world to have a single legal entity identifier for the counterparties and database of core and parental data around each entity when collecting transaction and position.

DTCC and Avox hope to make compliance with emerging regulatory requirements in this area more cost effective for the broader global industry. In furtherance of that goal, DTCC/Avox and SWIFT have been collaborating to develop solutions for consideration by the global industry.

“We hope to expand Avox’s role to help the industry meet the reference data needs of regulators looking to understand and react to systemic risks that might threaten the global financial system in the future,” said Ron Jordan, DTCC’s chief data officer. “Being recognized as having the best counterparty data in the world helps by demonstrating how that can be leveraged for this emerging broader purpose.”

About Avox

Avox, a subsidiary of DTCC, validates, corrects, enriches and maintains business entity reference data. This includes data such as corporate hierarchies, registered address information, industry sector codes and company identifiers. The company was founded in 2003 in cooperation with several financial institutions that required a more efficient mechanism for improving data quality and timeliness. The Avox operational model is unique in the industry. Its success stems from the continuous sharing of business intelligence with its clients and partners which Avox centralizes, anonymizes, verifies and publishes out to each participant. Financial institutions participating in Avox form a community that collectively addresses poor client, issuer and counterparty data quality. The community participants, which include some of the largest banks and asset managers in the world, both contribute and subscribe to a shared pool of data, processes and resources.

About DTCC

DTCC, through its subsidiaries, provides clearance, settlement and information services for equities, corporate and municipal bonds, government and mortgage-backed securities, money market instruments 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 more than 3.6 million securities issues from the United States and 121 other countries and territories, valued at US$36.5 trillion. In 2010, DTCC settled nearly US$1.66 quadrillion in securities transactions. DTCC has operating facilities and data centers in multiple locations in the United States and overseas. For more information, please visit www.dtcc.com.