Under terms of the agreement, Thomson Transaction Services (TTS) will integrate the Appix mortgage backed securities processing system into its main product TTSHost, and market it as TTSMortgage. TTS is one of the largest securities data-processing firms in the U.S., offering a comprehensive system for self-clearing and correspondent brokerage firms.

The TTS Mortgage integrated platform is a hosted solution within Thomson Transaction Service's brokerage processing solution. TTSMortgage streamlines the allocation process with direct connections to EPN (Electronic Pool Notification) which ensures straight through processing.

"The integration of the Appix product rounds out the solutions that TTS now offers to fixed income focused broker/dealers," said Gordon Fox, Managing Director, Thomson Transaction Services. "We are enthused about how well the TTSMortgage solution complements our back office, repo processing, and fixed income trading products," said Fox.

"This partnership enhances the TTS institutional offering by providing an integrated mortgage backed allocation system for pool allocations," said Christopher F. Feeney, Global Managing Director, Wealth Management, Thomson Financial.

"Thomson's selection of our fixed income software validates that our product provides best in class inventory management and clearance capabilities to institutional investors," said ATSC Vice President Doug Starkey. "Additionally, our mortgage backed securities processing product contains operational and portfolio maximizing innovations used by our customers to considerably expand their business capabilities," said Starkey.

ATSC President and Chief Executive Officer Dr. Edward H. Bersoff added, "We are excited about the Appix-Thomson partnership. It will significantly extend our product offering into the broker dealer market and add an important application service provider dimension to our solution."

Separately, Thomson Financial, an operating unit of The Thomson Coson Corporation (TSX: TOC, NYSE: TOC) and a leading provider of information, news and technology solutions to the worldwide financial community, today announced a strategic alliance with BQuotes, a top aggregator of Credit Default Swaps (CDS) pricing data serving traders, risk managers and portfolio managers.

Through the partnership, Thomson IFR Markets will deliver its real-time CDS commentary and analysis through the BQuotes CDS platform, beginning this month.

"Our partnership with BQuotes is a natural extension of Thomson IFR's strategy to deliver the best real-time analysis to the sell and buy-side in the rapidly growing derivatives arena," said Edward Rombach, senior analyst, IFR Markets. "By adding IFR's insightful CDS commentary and analysis to the BQuotes CDS screen, the picture will become even clearer."

"We're delighted to welcome Thomson IFR Markets as a partner in our effort to enhance transparency of the over-the-counter markets," said Yiannis Tsiounis, Ph.D., president and CEO of BQuotes, a leading provider of price discovery software. "We saw a strategic opportunity to partner with Thomson and combine IFR commentary and analysis to the BQuotes real-time price-discovery and market data platforms, to assist money managers in trading decisions as well as in evaluating their portfolios in light of upcoming FASB regulations," said Tsiounis.