Northern Trust Goes "Live" With Stochastic Credit Exposure Measurement

Toronto, Canada - June 21, 2005 -

Algorithmics Incorporated, a world leader in enterprise risk management solutions, today announced at its Algorithmics Risk Conference 2005 in London that Northern Trust Corporation of Chicago, Illinois, has gone "live" with stochastic credit exposure measurement for its trading portfolios across its foreign exchange operations in London, Chicago and Singapore. This implementation combines Algorithmics' credit simulation functionality with its pre-deal limit functionality and the Algo Market solution, already in place at Northern Trust. Stochastic potential future exposure calculations provide more accurate credit-risk modeling and will enhance the institution's risk measurement, performance measurement, capital allocation and planning activities.

"We are responding to the investor market's and institutional stakeholders' increasing demands for better and more transparent risk management," said Eric Banfield, vice president and market risk analyst at Northern Trust. "Algorithmics solutions have accelerated our efforts to move beyond satisfying regulatory requirements with regard to market risk. Given the flexibility of the system, we are confident we will be able to handle any new instruments or products we believe will benefit our clients. Also, while enabling valuation and risk measurement, the portfolio hierarchy model that Algorithmics helped us implement provides a clear illustration of the actual hierarchy structure of our portfolio across all offices and all currencies in which we deal."

Northern Trust also employs Algo Credit for pre-deal limits management to support intra-day and 24x7 trading operations. Algo Credit Limits provides a powerful risk-calculation, aggregation, and consolidation framework for comprehensive exposure and limit management for intra-day FX and money-market activity on over 50 GT-Win live dealer workstations worldwide. The solution also captures automated broker trades through the Northern Trust FX Passport, FX Caleo and Reuters Electronic Broker services. Algo Credit provides Northern Trust with "what-if" pre-deal limit checking as well as real-time availability under exposure, settlement and country-risk limits.

"We think the Algorithmics team dealt expertly with all the details of our company and our systems," said Banfield. "They were experts with the solutions as well as the risk management concepts. They helped us think about the uses and benefits of the output, including satisfying our management's requirement for a better picture of risk."

"As a long-term client of Algorithmics, Northern Trust is an excellent example of how innovative financial institutions add value through best-practice enterprise risk management," said Michael Zerbs, President and Chief Operating Officer at Algorithmics. "Northern Trust has a dynamic, nuanced, and evolving vision for risk management encompassing effective practical tools required for the real-time risk measurement as well as the value-added benefits of building risk into the business measurement and planning process."

About Northern Trust
Northern Trust Corporation is a leading provider of investment management, asset and fund administration, fiduciary and banking solutions for corporations, institutions and affluent individuals worldwide. Northern Trust, founded in 1889, has earned distinction as an industry leader in combining high-touch service and expertise with innovative products and technology.

About Algorithmics
Founded in 1989, Algorithmics is a recognized leader in enterprise risk management. Following its acquisition by the Fitch Group in January 2005, Algorithmics is the world's leading provider of enterprise risk management solutions and services that enable financial institutions to effectively understand and manage their financial risk. Algorithmics has over 200 clients, including more than 60 of the 100 largest financial institutions in the world. Algorithmics was recently recognized as the dominant enterprise risk solution provider in market, credit and operational risk in Risk Magazine's 2004 Technology Rankings.

About Fitch Group
Fitch Group is the parent company of Fitch Ratings, a leading global rating agency committed to providing the world's credit markets with accurate, timely and prospective credit opinions. Fitch Ratings is dual-headquartered in New York and London, operating offices and joint ventures in more than 50 locations and covering entities in more than 80 countries. Fitch Group is a wholly owned subsidiary of Fimalac, S.A., an international business support services group listed and headquartered in Paris, France.

©2005 Algorithmics Incorporated. All rights reserved. ALGO, ALGORITHMICS, AI & design, MARK-TO-FUTURE, ALGO CAPITAL, ALGO COLLATERAL, ALGO CREDIT, ALGO MARKET, ALGO OPVANTAGE, ALGO RISK, and ALGO SUITE are trademarks of Algorithmics Trademarks LLC.

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