News Releases

Singapore – Barclays Capital, the investment banking division of Barclays Bank PLC, today announces the launch of the Barclays Capital Emerging Markets Asia Swap Index Family; investable indices designed to replicate the performance of nominal interest rate swaps in the Asian emerging markets. This Index Family extends Barclays Capital's global investable swap index coverage into the emerging markets space with the objective of achieving maximum transparency of pricing for investors.

The markets covered by the Barclays Capital Emerging Markets Asia Swap Index Family include SGD, HKD, KRW, THB and TWD. Each index systematically tracks the return of a nominal par coupon interest rate swap of a specific tenor, rebalancing to par every month end. Core spot indices covering the 1-10yr tenor range are supplemented with 1yr forward 1yr indices for each market. The excess return of each index is driven by the net present value of each underlying swap and this is marked-to-market using transparent and publicly available swap rate data.

Out of the core spot indices, the 1yr, 2yr, 3yr, 4yr, 5yr, 7yr, 10yr and 1yr forward 1yr indices are fully investable. A 20yr tradable index for SGD is also available and similar long-dated indices are planned for the other markets.

"The Emerging Markets Asia Swap Index Family complements the already successful Barclays Capital Swap Index Families launched in 2007, further leveraging our expertise in this area. It also adds to our global index platform, which spans beta, enhanced beta and alpha strategies," said Norman Tweeboom, Head of Index, Portfolio & Risk Solutions Asia at Barclays Capital.

Amit Agarwal, Head of Rates Structuring Asia at Barclays Capital added, "Institutional investors, insurance companies, pension funds and corporates can use these transparently priced indices as duration access tools, systematic hedging tools and as benchmarks. The indices may also be used as components in strategy index products."

Barclays Capital will provide data, analytics and support for the index family via web-based and other ecommerce protocols. The indices are available on Barclays Capital's index website and via Barclays Capital Live, as well as Bloomberg.

Ends

For further information, please contact:

Jonathan Williams
Corporate Communications, Barclays Capital, Asia
+65 6308 3490
jonathan.williams@barcap.com

Notes to editors:

About Barclays Capital
Barclays Capital is the investment banking division of Barclays Bank PLC. With a distinctive business model, Barclays Capital provides large corporate, government and institutional clients with a full spectrum of solutions to their strategic advisory, financing and risk management needs. Barclays Capital has offices around the world, employs 20,000 people and has the global reach, advisory services and distribution power to meet the needs of issuers and investors worldwide.
For further information about Barclays Capital, please visit our website www.barclayscapital.com.