New York, NY – October 17, 2011 – Lightspeed Financial, Inc., a leading provider of ultra low latency direct market access (DMA) trading technology, risk management solutions, and brokerage services for professional retail traders and institutions, today announced its strategic expansion into prime brokerage with the launch of Lightspeed Institutional. Lightspeed Institutional is a division of the Company’s introducing broker/dealer subsidiary Lightspeed Trading, LLC.

Lightspeed Institutional offers a fully-integrated, specialized prime brokerage platform for professional investors. In addition to front-end manual and automated trading solutions, it provides a sales trading desk for execution services, technology solutions, custody, clearing, securities lending, and portfolio reporting. Lightspeed Institutional also delivers robust pre-trade risk management and real-time risk monitoring.

Highlights of the Lightspeed Institutional sophisticated services include:

• Agency-only and Outsourced Trade Desks: A hybrid model of electronic and voice access to experienced industry professionals and traders available to route order flow to brokers of choice.
• Prime Brokerage: Custody, clearing, and security lending of domestic and international securities.
• Multiple Account Types: Portfolio Margining, Separately Managed Account (SMA), Delivery vs. Payment (DVP)/ Receipt vs. Payment (RVP), and Clearing Member Trade Agreement (CMTA), among others.
• Commission Management Solutions: Fully compliant and integrated soft dollar system across multiple asset classes and a CSA solution.
• Reporting: Comprehensive, customized reporting, portfolio accounting, and performance management.

“The decision to expand into prime brokerage stems from our desire to meet the demands of a growing number of sophisticated investors who have grown dissatisfied with the level and cost of service they are receiving from some of the bigger players in the space,” said Andrew Actman, chief strategy officer, Lightspeed Financial, Inc. “Through Lightspeed Institutional, we believe there is a unique opportunity for us to deliver exceptional client service, superior trading technology, and unmatched industry expertise to this important subset of market participants.”

Stephen Ehrlich, Chief Executive Officer, Lightspeed Financial, Inc., said, “The launch of our prime brokerage business is a necessary next step in our strategic growth plan aimed at delivering the most complete and customizable suite of trading technology and brokerage services across asset classes to professional traders.”

Lightspeed Institutional is available to new and existing Lightspeed customers. For more information, visit www.lightspeedinstitutional.com or call Lightspeed Institutional Sales at 312-442-2998.

About Lightspeed Financial, Inc.

Headquartered in New York City, Lightspeed Financial operates through three wholly-owned subsidiaries:

Lightspeed Trading, LLC operates as a fully disclosed introducing broker-dealer and FINRA and NFA member. The Company offers securities and direct access brokerage, trading and advanced order routing services to their clients utilizing Lightspeed’s software products. Lightspeed Institutional is a division of Lightspeed Trading, LLC.

Lightspeed Technologies, LLC serves as the Company’s technology development subsidiary. Lightspeed develops and operates Lightspeed Trader, Lightspeed’s Direct Market Access trading software application; Lightspeed Gateway, Lightspeed algorithmic trading offering; Lightspeed Risk, a real-time risk management application; and Lightspeed Admin, Middle Office Technology suite. Utilizing a number of proprietary technologies, Lightspeed offers these products and more to broker-dealers, institutional entities and professional traders.

Lightspeed Education, LLC delivers educational products to the Lightspeed Trading, LLC customer community. These products include third party educational tools, webinars and the Lightspeed Spotlight social community. www.lightspeed.com

Lightspeed Financial, Lightspeed Technologies, Lightspeed Trading, Lightspeed Education and the Lightspeed logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Lightspeed Financial, Inc.

© 2011 Lightspeed Financial, Inc. All rights reserved.

Press Contact:

Mike Boccio

Sloane & Company

(212) 446-1867

mboccio@sloanepr.com