In parallel with the successful migration of the French banking system to TARGET2 on February 18th 2008, the Bank of France has put in place a new system for the management of collateral, the 3G system, which relies largely on the securities lending functionalities of VERMEG's MEGARA securities platform.

Thanks to MEGARA and its various modules, from now on, French banks can manage in a unified and global manner the total of their collateral (domestic and foreign financial instruments and private claims) vis a vis their refinancing requirements at the Bank of France, either to manage their monetary operations or to obtain intra-day credit.

Jean-Louis Landais, Director of Post Trade Operations at the Bank of France, stated: "Given the positive reactions already expressed by many banks in the French market, the Bank of France is very pleased with the improvements, particularly operational ones, that the 3G project has brought to the management of refinancing operations. Being able to manage a global pool of collateral provides credit institutions with an undeniable degree of flexibility and has greatly facilitated the migration of the French financial market to TARGET2."

Badreddine Ouali, President and CEO of VERMEG, added: "MEGARA going live as the technical base of the 3G project is a major accomplishment and the result of two years of intense work on the part of the project teams at Bank of France and VERMEG. It is also a very prestigious showcase for MEGARA and our new technology founded on J2EE and Service Oriented architecture. Our teams are now concentrating on going live with the Prisme7 project, which entails the reengineering of the whole securities processing chain at the Bank of France."