Calypso Technology

Tuesday, August 27, 2002

HSBC Goes Live on Calypso's New Credit Derivatives System

San Francisco, 27 August 2002 – Calypso Technology announced today that HSBC Bank USA has gone live on Calypso's new credit derivatives system. The Bank will use the system for front-to-back processing for a broad range of credit derivatives.

"We have been eager to have the new system in place," said Sandeep Saksena, Head of Derivatives and FX IT at HSBC Bank USA. Now, we can easily manage the whole trade life cycle-structuring, valuation, credit events, payments. We've reduced our time-to-market for new products, and increased our control of the business."

The system was developed jointly by Calypso and HSBC. Calypso enhanced its application suite to support the full range of credit derivative products including basket default and total return swaps. Using Calypso's open API's, HSBC integrated the system into the bank's technical environment, and incorporated its separately developed and maintained components, such as new proprietary products and analytics.

"With this system, we can continue to use our proprietary analytics and develop our own new products, while Calypso maintains and enhances the core software," added Saksena. "We now have a solid technical infrastructure for this vital business."

"The credit derivatives market has grown to the point many players feel the early internal systems they put in place are now holding them back. Nor have existing vendor products kept pace. With HSBC's input we have built a system that will support their business today and well into the future," said Kishore Bopardikar, President of Calypso. "Technology that enables, not inhibits."

About HSBC Bank USA
HSBC Bank USA has more than 410 branches in New York State, giving it the most extensive branch network in New York. The bank also has eight branches in Florida, two in Pennsylvania, three in California and 17 in Panama.

HSBC Bank USA is the tenth largest US commercial bank ranked by assets and is a subsidiary of HSBC USA Inc, an indirectly-held, wholly-owned subsidiary of HSBC Holdings plc (NYSE: HBC). Headquartered in London, and with over 7,000 offices in 81 countries and territories, the HSBC Group is one of the world's leading banking and financial services organizations. For more information about HSBC Bank USA and its products and services visit http://www.us.hsbc.com/.

Monday, July 8, 2002

Major European Bank Selects Calypso's Processing System

San Francisco, 08 July 2002 – Calypso Technology announced today that ING Bank is implementing Calypso for its treasury processing. The system will be installed initially at Banque Bruxelles Lambert (BBL), a subsidiary of ING. The implementation is part of ING's plan to reduce operational costs by consolidating its back office processing.

Last year, ING decided to bring together the processing for the financial markets businesses of ING Bank, ING Barings, BBL, BHF, and other subsidiaries. By consolidating the operations and IT platforms of these units in shared service centers, ING plans to lower costs and provide improved customer service.

Calypso will provide the processing software that makes this strategy viable, giving ING the potential to process in one system all of the financial products traded by its various legal entities. Moreover, the software is consistent with ING's desired infrastructure for the future. Calypso is modular in design, written in Java, and scales well as volumes increase. The system is designed and built to support centralized processing in large financial organizations.

"When a bank upgrades its processing infrastructure," said Kishore Bopardikar, President of Calypso, "it is a long-term decision. It demands a platform that can support its business now and well into the future. We are pleased ING sees us as that system. This announcement, along with other recent customer announcements, shows that Calypso is now the processing system of choice for top-tier firms."

Monday, October 15, 2001

Calypso Names New Asia-Pacific GM

San Francisco, 15 October 2001 – Continuing its rapid expansion, Calypso Technology announced today that Arnie Papp has joined as General Manager for Asia-Pacific. The Calypso real-time trading and processing system has already attracted customers such as HSBC, Dresdner Bank, Crédit Agricole Indosuez, and Wachovia-First Union. Papp will build a team to support Calypso's growth in Asia-Pacific, starting in Sydney where the company has just established an office and hired local support staff.

"Banks and brokerages throughout Asia-Pacific need to respond to the global trends of deregulation, greater transparency and T+1 settlement. At the same time they also need to reduce their cost structure to remain profitable in a highly competitive environment," said Papp. "Calypso has a unique product and I am excited to take part in the company's global expansion. We have chosen to start in Australia because of the pent-up demand for our system there. We will also be opening an office in Tokyo shortly."

Papp joins Calypso from GlobalSight Corporation, an enterprise software company, where he was Vice-President of Sales. His knowledge of the Asia-Pacific financial markets comes from his experience as Asia-Pacific GM for Infinity Financial Technology. In that role, he set up and managed Infinity's regional operations. Based in Tokyo, he developed and executed a successful business strategy that enabled the company to become the market leader in the region. He has also previously worked for Fuji Bank and Prudential Securities in Tokyo.

"Our software is critical to our customers' business," said Charles Marston, CEO of Calypso. "We must be able to support them as well after their implementation as before. That means having local presence and knowledgeable people. Arnie's experience makes him uniquely qualified to grow our team and ensure our clients' success. He is an important addition to our senior management team. We are delighted that he has joined us."

HSBC Chooses Calypso for Global Operations

San Francisco, 15 October 2001 – Calypso Technology, Inc. announced today that HSBC Bank plc has chosen Calypso as the processing platform for the Group's worldwide treasury markets and securities trading operations.

Calypso will provide all back office processing including settlements and documentation, accounting and P&L. The first implementation will be for foreign exchange with money markets, equities, derivatives and fixed income to follow.

"Amongst our goals are the reduction of transaction costs and the enhancement of services to HSBC Group's customers," said Andy Mayer, Director of OPSCO, a recently formed unit to develop a global operations capability at HSBC. "We looked for a real-time platform that would give us, cross product straight-through-processing, and equally important, one built with a modern architecture. This is a strategic investment for us; we want a system to serve us for years to come."

"By consolidating global transaction processing onto Calypso we expect to achieve significant reductions in operating costs across the Group and to enhance shareholder value. Calypso can support a high volume 24 x 7 business, which was a key evaluation criteria," Mr. Mayer explained,

HSBC also sees benefits beyond the cost savings. "Increasingly, new customer services are technology based," said Mr. Mayer. "To succeed, you need an environment that allows you to innovate-flexibility and time to market are key here. With Calypso we can implement new ideas quickly, and still keep tight control of our businesses."

"This is a major step for both our firms," said Charles Marston, CEO of Calypso. "HSBC's commitment to building a technology infrastructure for the future is impressive, and we are delighted they selected us as partners. It shows the value that we, a new and innovative software company, can bring to the largest financial organizations."

"From our inception, we have focused on core processing and the strategic role of technology in financial markets," said Kishore Bopardikar, President of Calypso. "Clearly, this relationship validates that focus, and shows us emerging as a leader in our market."

About HSBC
Headquartered in London, the HSBC Group is one of the largest banking and financial services organizations in the world. Serving 29 million customers, HSBC's international network comprises some 5,500 offices in 78 countries and territories in the Asia-Pacific region, Europe, the Americas, the Middle East and Africa.

Thursday, June 14, 2001

Société Générale subsidiary selects Calypso for Equity Derivatives

San Francisco, 14 June 2001 – Calypso Technology announced today that ClickOptions, a subsidiary of Société Générale, is using Calypso as the back-end core processing system for its new retail equity derivatives business. ClickOptions went live in France in May and will be rolled out to other countries later this year.

"Time to profitability is critical for us," said Lionel Gibert, Managing Director of ClickOptions. "With Calypso we have been able to develop an integrated business solution for our back end operations. We were able to go live much quicker than if we had had to juggle different pieces of software."

ClickOptions will give its customers Web-based access for trading and managing equity derivatives positions. The Calypso system provides all the back-end functionality for this site. It maintains customer accounts, produces trade tickets, updates positions, and manages the settlement process.

As well as the out-of-the-box application functionality, ClickOptions was also attracted by the flexibility of the system. The Calypso system's n-tier 100% Java architecture allows clients to add new functionality easily. "We had some unique requirements, such as the ability to support our proprietary new trading products," added Gibert. "Calypso's Java framework lets us keep control of these proprietary developments even while they are functionally integrated in the system."

"Calypso combines core processing and Internet deployment," said Kishore Bopardikar, President of Calypso. "ClickOptions' experience shows that we can deliver a complete Web-based trading solution-from clicked to settled. It further demonstrates the breadth of our system as we add another asset class to the list of those for which customers have chosen Calypso. That list now includes foreign exchange, money markets, fixed-income, equities, and interest-rate derivatives as well as equity derivatives."

About ClickOptions:
ClickOptions is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Société Générale, a world leader in the trading of complex equity and equity-index products. ClickOptions was created in October 2000 to enable individual investors to understand and participate in the equity derivatives market. www.clickoptions.com was launched in France in May, 2001 and will be rolled out to other European countries later this year.

Thursday, May 24, 2001

Dresdner upgrades its processing platform with Calypso

San Francisco, 24 May 2001 – Calypso Technology, Inc. announced today that Dresdner Bank has chosen Calypso for its foreign exchange (FX) processing.

"We are building the capability to become a leading provider of insourcing solutions in our Transaction Banking Division," said John Orton, Head of IT, Global Cash Management & Treasury Solutions. "Calypso technology provides us with the flexibility, responsiveness and scalability that we need to succeed in this market. We also like the Calypso people and the fact that they are willing and able to help us meet our very aggressive schedules."

Dresdner will install Calypso in Frankfurt where it has already consolidated settlement of its entire global FX business. The Calypso application will run round the clock in the Bank's state of the art e-commerce "web farm" environment, replacing a number of host-based systems.

Once the system is operational, Dresdner intends to offer trade-processing services to its corporate clients. The ability to scale up at low marginal costs will be key to the success of this effort. "We benchmarked Calypso to ensure that it can handle many times our current bank-wide volumes," said Dr. Christian Dachtler, Project Manager. "Moreover, we liked that Calypso has been designed to support an insourcing business."

"Competitive pressures often pull banks in seemingly opposite directions: cut spending to become more efficient, increase spending to innovate," said Charles Marston, CEO of Calypso. "These are mirror images of the same problem. The right technology solution can make possible both lower costs and new services. This vision has guided the development of our product. We are delighted that Dresdner Bank was quick to see this combined value, and we look forward to working with them."

About Dresdner Bank AG
The Dresdner Bank Group is active worldwide with around 1,500 branches and over 50,000 employees in more than 70 countries, including all the major financial centers. Ranked by total assets, market capitalization and size of customer base, Dresdner Bank is one of Europe's leading banking groups.

Tuesday, April 10, 2001

Calypso selected by Crédit Agricole Indosuez

San Francisco, 10 April 2001 – Calypso Technology and Crédit Agricole Indosuez (CAI) announced today that CAI has selected Calypso's processing software to support its global fixed income business. The system will be used for all post-trade processing functions including P&L, settlements, and accounting. CAI plans to deploy the system in France later this year where it will replace a number of in-house mainframe-based systems.

The decision was a strategic one for CAI. "CAI is active in fixed income markets globally. As these markets evolve so must our processing infrastructure for us to remain competitive," said Francois Marion, Head of Systems and Operations of CAI. "Consolidating our fixed income business on Calypso will reduce the number of systems we maintain, lower our costs and improve our service."

One of CAI's goals is to increase the percentage of transactions that are processed automatically, without human intervention. "Calypso's automated processing will enable us to drive up our straight-through processing (STP) rates," explained Christian Laurenceau, Head of Operations at CAI. "Higher STP rates will mean fewer errors, and better customer service."

The Calypso system is built on a real-time, component-based architecture. A Java-based framework allows clients to tailor the functionality to their particular requirements. "The flexible framework makes it easy for us to fit Calypso into our existing environment," added Laurenceau.

"Financial markets are changing, nowhere more so than in Europe," said Charles Marston, CEO of Calypso. "Success in this environment turns on efficiency and innovation-cut costs and create value. We are pleased that CAI sees the potential to achieve both goals with our software."

About Crédit Agricole Indosuez
A fully-fledged member of the Crédit Agricole Group, Crédit Agricole Indosuez is:

The capital markets arm of Crédit Agricole Group, occupying important positions in Europe in fixed income and foreign exchange, futures, and equity markets
The European private banking arm of the Crédit Agricole Group, though Banque de Gestion Privée Indosuez in France and in Europe through a strong presence in the 3 main European private markets
A corporate banking arm in the Crédit Agricole Group, having strengthened its long standing expertise in asset based finance and created new skills in corporate finance.

Tuesday, February 6, 2001

Calypso Goes Live At First Union Corporation

San Francisco, CA and Charlotte, NC, 06 February 2001 – Calypso Technology, Inc. and First Union Corporation announced today that First Union's Fixed Income Derivatives division is now live on the Calypso trading and processing system.

"In our business, innovation is the key to profitability. We wanted to speed up the process of taking a new product from concept to production," said Stuart Adams, head of Fixed Income Derivatives Trading at First Union. "We chose Calypso because it provides a framework that we use to add new products rapidly front-to-back. Since Calypso provides all the market standard functionality, our IT team is free to focus on issues that add value to our business. For example, we've developed proprietary analytics that we can plug into Calypso easily."

As well as providing the flexibility First Union needed, Calypso's 100% Java architecture allows the division to achieve straight-through processing (STP) for all the products it trades.

"STP requires automated flow of information between people and departments," said Thold Gill, head of Fixed Income Derivatives for First Union. "Calypso processes in real-time so people are aware of events-new trades, amendments, and so on-as they occur. This gives us much better control of how we do our business, and the quicker access to information has benefits beyond just control. Our marketers can be more efficient with client information like trades, advices, and special instructions readily available."

A longtime Sun Microsystems customer, First Union is deploying Calypso on a Sun EnterpriseTM E420R server running the SolarisTM Operating Environment. The implementation is proceeding in stages. A number of instruments are already processed on Calypso and they expect to transfer the remaining positions in the next few months.

"First Union's experience shows that Calypso is a highly flexible derivatives solution," stated Charles Marston, CEO of Calypso. "It also validates our cross-asset strategy. First Union is using the system for interest-rate derivatives. Other customers are implementing Calypso for foreign exchange, bonds, and equities."

About First Union
First Union (NYSE:FTU), with $254 billion in assets and stockholders' equity of $15 billion at December 31, 2000, is a leading provider of financial services to 15 million retail and corporate customers throughout the East Coast and the nation. The company operates full-service banking offices in 11 East Coast states and Washington, D.C., and full-service brokerage offices in 46 states. Online banking products and services can be accessed through http://www.firstunion.com/.
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