Friedman, Billings, Ramsey Selects Mantas for Trading Compliance Solution

Business Wire, Jan 9, 2007

Mantas Enables Protection Across Business Lines, Geographies

HERNDON, Va. -- Mantas Inc., a business of i-flex[R] solutions and a provider of regulatory compliance, loss prevention and revenue generation solutions, today announced that Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Co., Inc., an operating subsidiary of Friedman, Billings, Ramsey Group, Inc. (NYSE: FBR), will implement Mantas Trading Compliance Solution[TM] for use in its equities group. Founded in 1989, FBR is a top ten investment bank with a national franchise and one of the strongest equities distribution capabilities in the securities industry1.

"Financial institutions of all sizes are looking for enterprise-wide solutions that address current and evolving regulations regarding broker surveillance, trading compliance, anti-money laundering and other crucial purposes," said S. Ramakrishnan, CEO of Mantas. "Solutions based on our award-winning Mantas Behavior Detection Platform are designed to adapt to new regulations and threats - and that's a key factor for many clients."

According to Eva Weber, Analyst at the Aite Group, "Firms are increasingly looking at enterprise-wide solutions that not only provide a full picture of all trading behavior, but also generate insights for current and evolving regulatory requirements. Adopting a compliance framework which monitors firm-wide trading activity is a crucial first step toward achieving this goal."

Mantas Solutions

Mantas Trading Compliance Solution[TM] provides an expanded set of scenarios for fixed income surveillance, extends coverage of global equities and listed derivative trading behaviors, and enriches the Mantas Market Replay Market[TM] feature to enable user-specified comparison of firm data (orders, trades) against external market data (market center quotes, reported sales) on a tick for tick level. The Mantas Replay Market feature provides compliance analysts with the most powerful tool available to build an accurate perspective of the market conditions at the time of the questionable activity to enable accurate analysis and resolution of issues.

Mantas Advance[TM] and Mantas Select[TM] broaden the applicability of its compliance solutions to every financial services institution regardless of their product mix or existing compliance technologies. Mantas Advance enables the integration of all compliance data, information, risk management and document management systems into a single compliance dashboard. As the name implies, Mantas Select enables the selection of behavior detection scenarios across all of Mantas' compliance and operational risk management solution sets: Anti-Money Laundering[TM], Trading Compliance[TM] and Broker Compliance[TM]. The product comes bundled with the Mantas Case Management and Mantas Active Pages solutions.

About Mantas

Mantas provides its clients with the industry's most advanced solutions for regulatory compliance, loss prevention and revenue generation. Mantas is a global software company with operations in Europe, the Americas and Asia/Pacific. Recognized as a leader in global operational transparency, the company's products are used by more than 5,000 finance professionals in more than 100 countries. Headquartered in Herndon, Va., the company has offices in London, New York, and Singapore. For further information please visit www.mantas.com.

About i-flex solutions

i-flex([R]) solutions (Reuters: IFLX.BO & IFLX.NS) is a world leader in providing IT solutions to the financial services industry, with more than 680 customers in over 120 countries. i-flex's range of products, custom solutions and consulting services enable financial institutions to cut costs, respond rapidly to market needs, enhance customer service levels and mitigate risk.

For information, please visit: www.iflexsolutions.com

About Friedman, Billings, Ramsey Group, Inc.

Friedman, Billings, Ramsey Group, Inc. provides investment banking*, institutional brokerage*, asset management, and private wealth services through its operating subsidiaries and invests in mortgage-related assets and merchant banking opportunities. FBR focuses capital and financial expertise on eight industry sectors: consumer, diversified industrials, energy and natural resources, financial institutions, healthcare, insurance, real estate, and technology, media and telecommunications. FBR is headquartered in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area with offices in Arlington, VA, Boston, Dallas, Houston, Irvine, London, New York, Phoenix and San Francisco. Friedman, Billings, Ramsey Group, Inc. is the parent company of First NLC Financial Services, Inc., a non-conforming residential mortgage originator headquartered in Deerfield Beach, Florida. For more information, see www.fbr.com.

*Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Co., Inc.

1 Source: Dealogic. Total deal value of all common stock and units for all issuers, priced between 9/29/01 and 9/30/06, with apportioned credit to all book-runners. Includes only rank eligible transactions. Performance results vary considerably among offerings, and may significantly differ from the average. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.