14th August 2008

Tomorrow, on Friday, 15 August, Turquoise enters the period we call "limited live trading". During this phase of our rollout, Turquoise members who connect will access the full functionality of the platform for a limited share universe. All activity will represent real, production trading.

We expect low overall trading volumes in this period, while members enter a small number of orders for the first time from their production systems, and verify the configurations of smart order routers and other trading apparatus, and that trades process completely all the way through the clearing and settlement cycle.

This initial phase of rollout is very important for Turquoise, as we enable production connectivity with, among others, the market data vendors, whose feeds, screens and functions over the coming months will be measures of our success. From early September, you'll also find Turquoise market data on our website.

We start tomorrow with ten stocks, five each from the UK and Germany, three of which will be from the integrated market segment and two from the dark-only segment. The remaining eleven countries will be rolled out, each time with five stocks, over the next two weeks. Preceding the go-live of each new country, Market Operations will remind members of the stocks the day before and on the day. (The schedule is also available here.)

Once trading, clearing and settlement for all markets have been validated, the rest of the Turquoise universe, a total of 1267 stocks, opens for trading. This represents the end of "limited live trading", and the start of full production.

From that time we expect a modest increase in Turquoise activity, including a gradual increase in market-making, again as members experiment with live market conditions. In September we will see a significant increase in activity, as new members engage and market-making develops.

As you can imagine, we've worked hard to get to this verge of going live, and each of us harbours some wish that we could speed up our rollout. We hope you appreciate why we're proceeding in this more deliberate, measured way: the integrity of this new marketplace is paramount, and to manage its delivery into the trading community with care is the right thing to do.

Beginning later in September, by the way, we'll be announcing the arrival of Turquoise with a more formal launch campaign that we hope you will enjoy. That's the lighter side of the serious business we enter, having now reached this exciting juncture.

Thank you again for your interest and your support. We look forward to these next steps, and to working with you in the months and years ahead.

Eli