TradeWeb and Charles River to Offer First Seamless Fixed-Income STP Solution for the Complete Trade Cycle

- Interface eliminates re-keying of data and extends from decision support to settlement - 

JERSEY CITY, NJ and BURLINGTON, MA (January 13, 2003) - Charles River Development and TradeWeb today announced an agreement to offer the first fixed-income straight-through-processing solution that spans the front, middle and back office. Together the two firms will provide investment managers with a comprehensive and fully integrated fixed income workflow solution, from "what if" analysis and pre-trade compliance straight through to electronic trade execution, allocation, and confirmation.

"By linking their systems, TradeWeb and Charles River are providing tremendous benefits in terms of time savings, error reduction, and increased operational efficiency," said William Sullivan, managing director, Putnam Investments. "Now, for the first time, investment managers will be able to originate a fixed-income trade in an OMS, seamlessly route it electronically for execution, receive an electronic confirmation back in the OMS, and conduct paperless trade allocations and settlement without re-keying data."

To achieve seamless transfer of real-time trade data, the Charles River system will utilize TradeWeb's TradeXpressSM API via FIX. "The interface offers significant operational advantages. The lack of human intervention reduces the potential for errors and since we won't have to re-key data, we can increase our operational efficiencies," said John Sadowski, manager of fixed income operations, T. Rowe Price.

Charles River is the market leader in global order management, portfolio management and compliance systems. Its products include the Charles River Trading System (CRTS) and ComplianceMaster. TradeWeb is the global leader in online fixed-income trading. Its TradeXpress network enables investment managers and dealers to allocate and confirm fixed-income trades electronically.

Upon release in early 2003, the interface will be available to joint TradeWeb and Charles River clients. These joint client firms collectively have over US$2 trillion in assets under management and include some of the largest asset management firms in the world.

"Every firm must prioritize resources and choose who they will work with. It was only natural for TradeWeb and Charles River to gravitate toward each other - each a market leader in our respective fields," said Jim Toffey, chief executive officer of TradeWeb Group.

"The industry has been talking about fixed income straight-through-processing for years, but we are now seeing some real momentum," said Peter Lambertus, president and chief executive officer of Charles River Development. "A partnership between the two market leaders increases the likelihood that fixed income STP will become a reality - and, sooner rather than later."

About TradeWeb

TradeWeb is the leader in online fixed-income trading with more than 3 million trades executed and total volume exceeding $19 trillion since its inception in 1998. TradeWeb's multi-dealer auction model links nineteen of the world's leading dealers of fixed-income securities with more than 1,200 buy-side institutions in North America and Europe.

TradeWeb's proprietary auction model enables institutional investors to receive live price quotes simultaneously from their key dealers and trade instantly. Users can connect to TradeWeb's network using software that installs in minutes and runs on their existing computer hardware.

The company also provides fixed-income market professionals with premier market data for the liquid fixed-income securities traded on its platform. Real-time market data is available either directly from TradeWeb over the Internet or through a data distribution agreement with MoneyLine Telerate.

TradeWeb is also a leader in electronic "straight-through processing" of fixed-income trades, providing dealers and customers with paperless trade allocations and confirmations on its fully integrated TradeXpressSM network. For more information about TradeWeb products and services, please visit the company's website at www.tradeweb.com or contact Tom Eady in the US at (201) 536-6580

About Charles River Development

Charles River Development offers financial software and consulting services to the global investment management, banking, and insurance industries. The Charles River Trading System, a multicurrency portfolio and order management system automates the buy-side investment management process to facilitate STP. ComplianceMaster, a pre/post trade compliance solution, significantly increases firm compliance through the real-time monitoring of account and regulatory guidelines and risk exposure. Charles River serves over 95 clients worldwide and processes over US $7 trillion in assets. Founded in 1984 and privately held, Charles River is headquartered in Burlington, MA and maintains offices in London, San Francisco, Chicago, Singapore, and Sydney. For more information, please visit www.crd.com or contact Lorelei Skillman at (781) 425-6429.