Belzberg Announces Wireless Securities Trading Software for CBOE Hand Held Devices; Floor Traders Begin Using Belzberg's Technology.

Business Editors

TORONTO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 27, 2000

Belzberg Financial Markets and News International, Inc. (CDN:BELZ.)

Wireless Software Integrates With Belzberg's Internet Gateway

Platform, Further Extending the Breadth and Depth of Belzberg's

Electronic Trading Infrastructure

Belzberg Financial Markets and News International, Inc., the world's leading supplier of e-commerce gateways and Internet based securities trading solutions, announced today that traders at the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) have recently commenced using a hand-held device enabled with Belzberg's wireless trading gateway that allows traders to trade stocks at exchanges around the world while on the floor of the CBOE.

The move is expected to bring new levels of sophistication to equities trading for options traders on the CBOE floor, who hedge their positions in options and other derivative instruments by taking positions in the underlying stocks. In addition, this state-of-the-art wireless solution can be rapidly deployed with minimum customization into market environments requiring Internet-enabled hand-held devices for mass market direct access to stock exchanges worldwide.

Belzberg's secure wireless solution further enhances Belzberg's end-to-end Internet based securities trading infrastructure by providing an encrypted wireless connection to CBOE traders who wish to trade securities over the Internet at exchanges around the world.

At the core of Belzberg's electronic trading infrastructure lies the Belzberg Internet Gateway, a fully scalable, high-speed, high-volume software platform that intelligently routes trades received over the Internet and now, through wireless hand-held devices, to their appropriate exchange for execution. The platform's patented protocol translation capability makes trading transparent to the trader and to the exchanges where the trades are sent.

The Belzberg Internet Gateway currently connects to all US and Canadian exchanges including the NYSE, AMEX, numerous NASDAQ market makers, ECNs and Alternative Trading Systems. Connectivity to exchanges around the world, including Europe, Asia and Australia will be available later this year.

The Belzberg Internet Gateway is compliant with most standard exchange protocols including: the Financial Information Exchange (FIX) protocol, which is currently the industry standard; Common Message Switch Interface Protocol (CMS), used by the American and New York Stock Exchanges; STAMP, used by the Toronto and CDNX Exchanges; and SWIFT protocol, universally used by the Banking industry. Many other protocols are currently being added.

"Electronic trading of equities using these hand-held devices from the floor of the CBOE involves over 1,000 market makers and accounts for some twenty to thirty million shares a day," Andy Lowenthal, Director of Trading Operations at the Chicago Board Options Exchange, said. "Correspondingly, the volume of options contracts traded on the CBOE has nearly doubled in the last year, from about 800,000 to over 1,500,000 contracts a day, largely because of the increased efficiency with which market makers can hedge positions by filling orders electronically. Belzberg's capabilities," he noted, "represent the next level of sophistication in this process."

Belzberg Financial Markets & News International Inc. (http://www.belzberg.com), with offices in New York, Chicago and Toronto, has been providing trading systems, order management systems, and protocol translation gateways to major U.S and Canadian financial institutions since 1993. Belzberg invented and received a patent for the world's first Internet message translation gateway for the financial industry, and brought it to market in 1996.

The Belzberg electronic trading infrastructure comprises a suite of Institutional equity trading applications, the Retail Internet Trading System, the Belzberg Internet Gateway, and the Order Management System, all of which work together and seamlessly integrate into existing systems. These products allow individual traders as well as institutions to send complex trades electronically to broker-dealers and to a variety of exchanges automatically. Additionally, many brokerage firms offer the Belzberg system over the Internet or corporate intranets as an order execution and securities trading solution for their customers. Belzberg clients include BT Brokerage, CIBC Oppenheimer; ING Barings, Merrill Lynch, State Street, TD Waterhouse and others.

Belzberg is currently adapting the patented technology to support a wide range e-commerce business-to-business applications involving the delivery of secure and personalized electronic information services, transactions and payments on a broad range of mass-market wired and wireless Internet-enabled devices, such as personal digital assistants, digital mobile phones, and paging devices. In the near future, for example, the company expects to offer software that will allow individuals direct access to trading over commonly used hand-held devices.

About Belzberg Financial

Belzberg Financial Markets & News International Inc. (http://www.belzberg.com), with offices in New York, Chicago and Toronto, has been providing trading systems, order management systems, and protocol translation gateways to major US and Canadian financial institutions since 1993.

Belzberg invented and received a patent for the world's first Internet message translation gateway for the Financial Industry, and brought it to market in 1996. Belzberg is currently extending its high-speed, Internet gateway to include delivery of secure and personalized electronic information services, transactions, and payments on a broad range of mass-market wired and wireless Internet-enabled devices, such as personal digital assistants, digital mobile phones, and paging devices.