The combined offering will enable mutual clients of the two companies to automatically price loans from the Misys Loan IQ platform which will ultimately boost their credit quality assessments and risk management on commercial loans.

Markit Loans is widely regarded as the most accessible and comprehensive loan pricing data in the market while Misys Loan IQ provides an integrated solution covering the entire life cycle of a loan - from origination and deal tracking to agency servicing and secondary trading. Misys Loan IQ currently handles one third of the world's syndicated loans and half of the world's secondary loan trades. Further to the integration, mutual clients will be able to view underlying dealer quotes of contributed prices directly from the Misys Loan IQ platform.

The integration of Markit's loan pricing service into Misys Loan IQ comes at a time of increasing focus among banks on P&L management. Recent TowerGroup Research Note V54:01W, From Crunch to Squeeze: Global Impact of the Credit Crisis on Commercial and Small Business Lending, by Patricia Hines, Research Director for Wholesale Banking at TowerGroup, shows that the credit crunch is driving financial institutions to put renewed focus on credit quality, loan covenant enforcement, risk-based pricing, and strong loan documentation when making credit decisions. Loan underwriters are also spending more time on risk assessment, financial statement analysis and legal review.

Ken Katz, Misys Loan IQ Global Product Manager, comments: "Combining Markit's best in class loan pricing data with Misys' market leading loan investment, syndication and trading solution enables us to offer our customers powerful pricing capabilities. Timeliness is critical to P&L reporting and risk analysis, and we believe this integration means we can offer loan market participants the most comprehensive solution on the market."

Nicola von Schroeter, Managing Director and Head of Alliances at Markit, adds: "We are delighdelighted to jointly offer this technology solution which will allow our customers to easily access Markit's loan data via the Misys Loan IQ platform. Making our data accessible via third party platforms requires thorough quality checks and our Certified Alliance Partner status, which Misys has now achieved, to guarantee a successful integration."