Euroclear and the International Capital Market Association have signed an agreement under which the international clearing house will acquire Xtrakter, an ICMA subsidiary, for an undisclos

Euroclear and the International Capital Market Association have signed an agreement under which the international clearing house will acquire Xtrakter, an ICMA subsidiary, for an undisclosed cash amount. Xtrakter owns Trax, a trade matching and regulatory reporting system that also provides market and reference data.

Pending regulatory approval, Xtrakter will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Euroclear and a sister company to the Euroclear group's international and national central securities depositories as well as EMXCo, a provider of mutual fund order routing messages.

According to Euroclear, the Xtrakter business will complement the over-the-counter trade matching and routing service offered by Euroclear Bank since 2000.

By the end of 2009, trade data already input into the Trax system will be processed straight through to settlement at Euroclear, eliminating trade matching duplication and reducing settlement fails, costs and risks.

Euroclear deputy chief executive officer Ignace Combes says: 'Combining the pre-settlement services and expertise of Xtrakter with the highly efficient transaction-settlement prowess of Euroclear will deliver a competitively priced, full straight-through processing service from trade matching to settlement.

'By looking upstream to trade matching, we are continuing to increase efficiency and lower back-office costs for clients by streamlining processes and eliminating fragmentation.'

Kevin Milne, chief executive officer of Xtrakter, says: 'Under our new ownership, we will maintain our strategy of delivering ongoing improved client services across all our business lines. Being part of Euroclear will enable us to drive our matching, reporting and information services products into new areas, helping our customers to reduce further their operational cost of trading.'