London and New York, NY - Markit, a leading, global financial information services company, today announced plans to expand the Markit iBoxx family of cash bond indices with the launch of the Markit iBoxx ABS index in the third quarter of 2010.

The Markit iBoxx ABS index will track the performance of the European floating-rate asset-backed securities (ABS) market.  It will enable market participants to gain a better understanding of the returns available in the European ABS market and measure the relative performance of their portfolios. 

The index will be rules-based and its pricing will be drawn from multiple dealer price contributions.  It has already gained the support of 19 financial institutions that have agreed to contribute bond prices to Markit. 

Chris Ames, Head of ABS at Schroders, said: “We believe the launch of the Markit iBoxx ABS index will be an important step in promoting overall transparency for risk and returns within the European ABS asset class.  The objective multi-contributor pricing model supported by the broad dealer community will go a long way to making this index the benchmarking standard for the market.”

Niall Cameron, Executive Vice President at Markit, said: “We are delighted to build on the success of our Markit iBoxx indices and expand into the ABS market.  The Markit iBoxx indices are amongst the world’s leading indices for product structuring and risk management and we will continue to expand our coverage across the fixed income asset class."

The Markit iBoxx ABS index will be independent, transparent and rules-based.  Independent buy-side and sell-side advisory committees will provide guidance on issues such as index functions and advancements.  Information on the index will be available on www.markit.com.

Notes to Editors:

About the Markit iBoxx indices
Markit iBoxx indices are market leading fixed income benchmark indices. They are an essential tool for structured products and provide data for fixed income research, asset allocation and performance evaluation in the global fixed income markets.

Markit iBoxx indices cover Euro, Sterling, Asian, US Dollar and European High Yield bond markets. Markit has also established a global inflation-linked index family, global emerging markets local currency indices, and US pension liability indices.

About the Markit iBoxx ABS Index
The Markit iBoxx ABS index will have ten standard sub-indices benchmarked for EUR, GBP and USD investors, each tracking total returns from as far back as January 2007:

• Markit iBoxx ABS
• Markit iBoxx RMBS
• Markit iBoxx Dutch RMBS
• Markit iBoxx Italian RMBS
• Markit iBoxx Spanish RMBS
• Markit iBoxx UK Prime RMBS
• Markit iBoxx UK Non-Conforming RMBS
• Markit iBoxx UK Buy-To-Let RMBS
• Markit iBoxx UK CMBS
• Markit iBoxx CMBS