Lewis will become vice president, European Loans Product Management, effective immediately. In this newly created position, he will lead the business development for DTCC's Loan/SERV product line in Europe. Loan/SERV is a new suite of services that will help automate and streamline the processing of syndicated commercial loans in both Europe and the United States.

Lewis will be based in London and report directly to Christopher Childs, vice president, Global Loans Product Management, who is based in New York.

Lewis comes to DTCC from ACBS/ClearPar, a division of Fidelity National Information Services (FIS) in London, where he served as director of business development and oversaw the sales, product development and relationship management for a variety of loan settlement and trading services.

Prior to working at FIS, Lewis was the U.S. sales manager for Computasoft/Dealogic LLC in New York and was responsible for the sales and management of financial software applications for the loan syndication market.

"Mathew brings a wealth of experience and knowledge to this position and has a firm grasp of the unique workings of the European syndicated loan market," said Childs. "He understands the challenges the industry faces in automating and streamlining this complicated process and knows how best to work with customers as we move closer to straight-through processing."

Despite expansive growth in the past several years, the syndicated loan market remains hampered by manual processes, outdated communications and an absence of industry-wide standards, Childs said.

A syndicated loan is a loan provided by a group of lenders, usually arranged and administered by a third-party banking agent whose responsibilities include the transmission of information and cash between the parties. The market has historically lacked central automation and recordkeeping capabilities, which has lead to operational inefficiencies.

The European market is further complicated by cross-border jurisdictional differences and the fact that the European syndicated loan market tends to have more multi-currency and multiple-borrower deals.

"This is both an exciting and challenging time for participants in the syndicated loan business," said Lewis. "For the market to continue to grow and expand globally, we'll need to bring greater efficiencies and transparency to the marketplace through automation."

DTCC will introduce two Loan/SERV products in Europe and the United States in 2008. The first is a Loan Commitment Position Reconciliation service, which will enable agents to reconcile lender positions on individual loans every day, helping both agents and lenders detect errors earlier in the process and prior to cash payments occurring. This service is scheduled to launch in the third quarter of 2008. A second service, scheduled for release in the fourth quarter of 2008, will be an automated, secure communication network through which agent banks can transmit standard loan messages to market participants.