This makes Trace Financial the first SWIFT solution provider to have product offerings for this new service.

SWIFT's new global solution for central trade-date matching of equity and fixed income trades went live on schedule on 18 May 2009. The solution is being used by major prime and executing brokers to match equity and fixed income trades executed by the global hedge fund community. Accord for Securities can also be used in other process flows, replacing faxed trade confirmations with electronically matched MT 515s. The solution can be used between custodians and executing brokers, to match trades originating from investment managers, as well as between executing brokers to confirm and match OTC (over-the-counter) trades that are not automatically cleared by an exchange.

Trace Financial is able to help institutions create MT 515s in line with the Accord for Securities Rulebook - the market practice for use of the service. Trace Financial's solutions can also integrate the Accord matching results into back office applications, to handle exceptions and automate settlement of matched trades. Accord for Securities generates status updates in real time using ISO-15022 based structured messages containing the latest status of a confirmation (for example, matched, mis-matched, cancelled, alleged), a reason code, and key data elements from the counterparty's confirmation.

Sam Romilly, of the Securities Marketing team at SWIFT, responsible for Accord for Securities programme management, commented: "The enthusiasm and attention to detail demonstrated by Trace Financial makes us confident they will play an important role in helping us roll out the Accord for Securities solution across the industry. The MT 515 is already a widely used message, but there are specific validation rules in place in Accord to ensure the highest of matching rates can be achieved. Also, to maximise the benefits of Accord, the integration of the real-time matching resultslts is a must to ensure complete automation of the process. Enablers such as Transformer and Cloverleaf® can help ensure a rapid and accurate implementation project".

John Murphy, Managing Director, Trace Financial, stated, "Trace Financial is pleased to offer the Accord dictionary that will enable clients to take advantage of Accord for Securities with minimal cost and effort. This is a critical business function and our product set makes the service available within the user's existing infrastructure."