For the first time, Misys' flagship loan market platform, Misys Loan IQ, will feature support for double byte characters (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) enabling financial services institutions in Asia to leverage its globally proven straight through processing capabilities in local market languages.

The solution is being launched to the Asian market at the APLMA 10th Annual Asia Pacific Loan Syndications Conference, held in Shanghai, and arrives at a time when Asian countries are outperforming traditional financial centres in the global commercial lending industry. According to the latest data from Thomson Financial, Asia (ex-Australia) loans posted the highest first quarter volume of all-time with US$140.5 billion of proceeds in the first three months of 2008. This represented a 36% increase compared to US$103.1 billion in loan proceeds in the same period last year.

With deal sizes increasing, Misys is entering the market with the leading commercial lending solution facilitating the origination, syndication, trading, servicing, accounting and reporting functions for syndicated and bilateral loan portfolios. Misys Loan IQ is already used by 13 of the top 20 Syndicated Loan Book runners globally (accounting for over 1/3 of the world's syndicated loans) while 7 of the top 10 U.S. Lead Arrangers use the solution.

Graeme Beardsell, Managing Director, Misys Asia Pacific, comments: "Many global banks already use the Misys Loan IQ solution in Asian offices and this new support for Asian language characters will help more local market institutions to take advantage of the regional growth in the syndicated lending market. Because GDP growth in the Asia-Pacific region is still strong, business lending in this region - particularly in China and Japan - will likely increase throughout 2008 as Asian banks have limited subprime exposure and adequate capital reserves to support lending activities."

The development also represents a major milestone in the technology roadmap of Misys Loan IQ. For the latest release, the solution has been transitioned to a Java technology platform which is a stepping stone to a full SOA architecture.

Misys Loan IQ is a comprehensive solution that covers the entire life cycle of a commercial loan - from origination and deal tracking to agency servicing and secondary trading. It currently handles one third of the world's syndicated loans and half of the world's secondary loan trades.