HSBC Joins TradeWeb's Corporate Bond Marketplace

--Expanding Liquidity Drives Demand for TradeWeb Corporates -- 

JERSEY CITY, NJ (September 20, 2004) - Thomson TradeWeb, a unit of The Thomson Corporation (NYSE:TOC; TSX: TOC), announced today that HSBC Securities (USA) Inc. has become a liquidity provider for TradeWeb Corporates, TradeWeb's multi-dealer corporate bond marketplace. HSBC Securities is a financial services leader, serving a wide range of corporate and institutional clients. It engages in underwriting, dealing, and brokering a full range of debt and equity securities and futures contracts and serves as a primary dealer in US government and federal agency securities. HSBC Securities also provides liquidity for five other TradeWeb marketplaces.

HSBC Securities becomes the ninth dealer on TradeWeb Corporates, following the recent addition of Spear, Leeds andamp; Kellogg. The other participating dealers include Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, and UBS Investment Bank. This prominent group of dealers provides liquidity to more than 175 institutional investors using TradeWeb Corporates for a wide range of corporate bonds.

"HSBC is a great addition to our TradeWeb Corporates rapidly growing marketplace," said Jim Toffey, Chief Executive Officer of Thomson TradeWeb. "Institutional investors on TradeWeb will benefit from the firm's extensive global capabilities and strong balance sheet."

Mike Allen, managing director and head of corporate bond trading, HSBC Securities (USA) Inc. added, "HSBC's expanding corporate bond business is planning to take full advantage of the efficiencies and cost benefits that TradeWeb's corporate platform provides in facilitating our customers' corporate debt trading. We believe that this platform will help HSBC enhance our customer service."

Since launching in early June, TradeWeb's new corporate bond platform has expanded rapidly. More than 175 institutions, with over 450 institutional traders, access the platform for real-time TRACE information, commingled dealer inventories, single and multiple security trading, and straight-through processing. TradeWeb Corporates is the only platform to fully integrate TRACE data into a trader's workflow and to allow buy-side investors to commingle and electronically upload up to 30 pre-allocated buy and sell trades on a single electronic Bid andamp; Offer List. TradeWeb's leading STP network also provides the buy side with the capability to streamline their trading process for electronic and phone trades through electronic allocations and confirmations all on one efficient network.

About Thomson TradeWeb

TradeWeb is the leading online fixed-income trading network with over 5 million trades executed and total volume surpassing $53 trillion since its inception in 1998. TradeWeb's multi-dealer auction model links 31 of the world's leading dealers of fixed-income securities with more than 1,500 buy-side institutions in North America and Europe.

The business is also the leading electronic "straight-through processing" network for the fixed-income markets, providing dealers and buy-side institutions with paperless trade allocations and confirmations on its fully integrated TradeXpressSM network. TradeWeb's STP network also includes AccountNetÒ, the leading standard settlement instructions database.

Thomson TradeWeb operates within the Thomson Financial group of businesses. TradeWeb LLC is a NASD registered broker/dealer.

For more information about TradeWeb products and services, please visit the company's website at www.tradeweb.com or contact Jack Mahoney at (201) 536-5878.

About Thomson Financial

Thomson Financial is a US$1.5 billion provider of information and technology solutions to the worldwide financial community. Through the widest range of products and services in the industry, Thomson Financial helps clients in more than 70 countries make better decisions, be more productive and achieve superior results. Thomson Financial is part of The Thomson Corporation (www.thomson.com), a leading provider of value-added information, software tools and applications to more than 20 million users in the fields of law, tax, accounting, financial services, higher education, reference information, corporate training and assessment, scientific research and healthcare. With revenues of US$7.44 billion, The Thomson Corporation lists its common shares on the New York and Toronto stock exchanges (NYSE: TOC; TSX: TOC.)