Asia PR News

NEW YORK, May 29 /PRNewswire -AsiaNet/ –

Bloomberg, the leading data, analytics and news provider, this week
announced that the Bloomberg E-Bond platform for Singapore Government Bonds has
been launched on the BLOOMBERG PROFESSIONAL(R) service.

Bloomberg E-Bond, available to certain users of the BLOOMBERG
PROFESSIONAL(R) service via the function EBND < GO > , is a global electronic
trading system for bonds and treasury bills. Developed for the Singapore
Primary Dealer community on behalf of the Monetary Authority of Singapore
("MAS") for Singapore Government Securities, Bloomberg E-Bond offers a unique
multi-dealer Request For Quote ("RFQ") and anonymous quotation bulletin board,
along with Straight-Through-Processing ("STP") features and real-time market
activity displays. SGSM < GO > is the real-time market activity monitor for
Singapore Government Securities, and EB < GO > is the main menu for E-Bond
functions.

Using Bloomberg E-Bond, Singapore Primary Dealers now benefit from a
flexible, commission-free dealing, trade capture and reporting mechanism while
seamlessly offering global investors and market oversight entities a real-time
view of price quotations and market activity for Singapore Government
Securities. The Bloomberg E-Bond platform will play a key role in fostering
price transparency and liquidity in financial markets in the region.

In July 2005 Bloomberg E-Bond became the interbank dealing platform in
Singapore when the initial launch of Bloomberg E-Bond RFQ trading among
Singapore Primary Dealers introduced real-time quote depth and trading
information to domestic and foreign market participants. The next phase of
Bloomberg E-Bond went live on May 3, 2006, involving the addition of an
integrated anonymous quotation bulletin board. The incorporation of
executable quotes further increases the quality of liquidity and transparency
in the Singapore Government Securities market.

In the nine months ending April 2006, more than 11,000 trades totaling
more than USD $38 billion have been executed on Bloomberg E-Bond by the 11
Singapore Primary Dealer firms, which include ABN Amro, Bank of America,
Barclays, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, DBS, HSBC, OCBC, Standard
Chartered, and United Overseas Bank. Underscoring the initial global response
to Bloomberg E-Bond, foreign ownership of Singapore Government Securities had
more than doubled from 6% to 14% in the three months following the July 2005
launch of RFQ trading on Bloomberg E-Bond in Singapore.

About Bloomberg E-Bond

The Bloomberg E-Bond platform offers trading in local currency bonds and
treasury bills without transaction fees via the function EBND < GO > on the
BLOOMBERG PROFESSIONAL service. The EBND screen allows for two-way RFQ
pricing and displays competing real-time quote depth on an anonymous quotation
bulletin board.

With Bloomberg E-Bond’s RFQ module, market-makers are able to request for
market quotes from multiple counterparties and are able to effectively control
multiple transactions at any given time in active market.

Another module of Bloomberg E-Bond allows dealers to send orders in
response to anonymous quotations. This module can be used separately from the
RFQ module and contains an individual counterparty credit database set by each
dealer which reveals the identities of the counterparties to a proposed trade.
Bloomberg E-Bond provides price transparency and liquidity but does not
perform matching, execution, clearing or settlement functions.

Bloomberg E-Bond is now being implemented across Asia, including Indonesia
with 25 participating firms, Sri Lanka with 13 firms, and the Philippines with
24 firms. In addition to secondary market trading platform, Bloomberg also
offers its Bloomberg Auction System, which allows government debt issuers to
conduct their primary market auctions via the same platform. Consolidating
primary and secondary market trading mechanisms can reduce the costs borne by
dealers for participation and integration for STP purposes. With Bloomberg’s
widely distributed technology, including the use by many Primary Dealers of
the Bloomberg position-keeping and risk-management system (TOMS), Bloomberg E-
Bond offers full STP with no transaction fees and minimal implementation and
integration costs for banks. As Bloomberg E-Bond is adopted by more countries
that seek to develop more cross-border flow, the efficiencies of the platform
continue to grow in value.

About Bloomberg

Bloomberg is the leading global provider of data, news and analytics. The
BLOOMBERG PROFESSIONAL(R) service and Bloomberg’s media services provide
real-time and archived financial and market data, pricing, trading, news and
communications tools in a single, integrated package to corporations, news
organizations, financial and legal professionals and individuals around the
world. Bloomberg’s media services include the global BLOOMBERG NEWS(R)
service with more than 1,900 professionals in 125 bureaus worldwide; the
BLOOMBERG TELEVISION(R) 24-hour business and financial network produced and
distributed worldwide on ten separate channels in seven languages; and
BLOOMBERG RADIO(SM) services which provide up-to-the-minute news on XM, Sirius
and WorldSpace satellite radio around the world and on WBBR 1130AM in New York.
In addition, Bloomberg publishes BLOOMBERG MARKETS(R) magazine and BLOOMBERG
PRESS(R) books for investment professionals. For more information please visit
http://www.bloomberg.com.

SOURCE Bloomberg

CONTACT: Judith Czelusniak of Bloomberg LP
+1-212-617-4273, or
jczelusniak@bloomberg.net

Web site: http://www.bloomberg.com