Montreal, Quebec; Toronto, Ontario (February 28, 2006) - CanDeal, Canada's leader in dealer to institutional investor online debt securities trading, is pleased to announce that Desjardins Securities, the securities brokerage arm of the Desjardins Group has agreed to a multi-year commitment to join the CanDeal marketplace.

Desjardins Securities is the 10th dealer on CanDeal’s platform, where rapid growth continues with the amassing of significant dealer liquidity and an ever expanding list of institutional investors in Canada and the U.S.

“Desjardins Securities is a welcome addition to our online marketplace. Institutional investors continue to favour executing their trades electronically and they appreciate the commitment and effort of leading dealers like Desjardins Securities, who demonstrate a clear vision of the need to evolve the Canadian debt markets” said Jayson Horner, President and CEO of CanDeal.

Mr. Horner added that in addition to Desjardins Securities, CanDeal's dealer group includes BMO Nesbitt Burns, Casgrain & Company, CIBC World Markets, HSBC Securities (Canada), Laurentian Bank Securities, National Bank Financial, RBC Capital Markets, Scotia Capital, and TD Securities.

Steven Shelton, Senior Vice President of the Fixed Income Group, Desjardins Securities, said, "Electronic connectivity with our clients augments our fast growing fixed income franchise. CanDeal has established itself as the essential online marketplace for clients inside and outside of Canada to access our market. Strategically, our ambition is to expand our capabilities in Canada and the United States. In addition to recently being appointed a Primary Dealer in Canada, our participation in CanDeal will allow our Fixed Income Group to remain among the market leaders.”  

About CanDeal 
CanDeal is Canada's leading dealer to institutional investor online debt securities marketplace (www.candeal.ca). CanDeal's world class platform provides its North American participants with continuous access to the deepest pool of liquidity for Canadian fixed income products. CanDeal delivers the market making power of ten leading investment dealers. In partnership with Thomson TradeWeb, the network also offers Canadian institutional investors access to a wide range of U.S. and European debt products.

The CanDeal electronic marketplace is open and available to all institutional investors and investment dealers in North America. In addition to straight-through-processing, online trade allocations, real time trade blotters and confirmations, CanDeal is also a leading innovator in the fixed income markets for best execution, superior compliance & audit measurement and benchmarking. CanDeal also provides a real time market data price feed for fixed income securities.

About Desjardins Securities
Desjardins Securities offers full-service brokerage through its investment advisors, and online brokerage services through its online brokerage Disnat division.  The needs for companies and governments are dealt by its services of Corporate Finance, Fixed Income Group, and Equity Capital Markets, strongly supported by the Research Department. The organization which manages over $18 billion in assets has 42 service points of full-service brokerage and employs more than 1,200 people, including 305 Investment Advisors throughout Québec and Ontario.