Under the partnership, Omgeo will send settlement instructions from electronic trade confirmation or central matching directly to Crest as well as to the settling parties to the transaction. Crest will then set-up the instructions for settlement without the need for direct input by either settling party.

Iain Saville, chief executive of CrestCo says the approach is fully consistent with Crest's new arrangements for netting market-side transactions during 2002 and resembles Omgeo's existing relationship with The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) for processing and settling US securities.

"Currently client-side processing is a fragmented and often manual process," he says. "Straight-through processing from trade to settlement for client side transactions is essential to bring costs down, and to allow shortened settlement cycles."

CrestCo, together with the London Clearing House, is introducing a settlement netting service in 2002 for electronically executed trades on the London Stock Exchange's Sets system. As part of this service, firms will be able to opt in to central automatic matching.

Omgeo is a joint venture company established by the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation and Thomson Financial. It is vieing with the axion4 vendor coalition and SunGard to deliver a central matching utility for post-trade processing.

Kevin Milne, executive managing director of Omgeo, comments: "Our strategic partnership with Crest is a major milestone in our commitment to working closely with key industry participants. This is a tremendous step forward in providing a true STP solution that links trading and settling parties as well as depositories."