Washington, D.C. (January 11, 2006) – Promontory Financial Group announced today that Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa , former Chairman of the Basel Committee on Bank Supervision and newly appointed Chairman of the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) foundation, has joined the firm as Senior Adviser.

Mr. Padoa-Schioppa on Jan. 1 assumed the Chairmanship of the Trustees of the foundation that oversees the IASB, replacing Paul Volcker. Mr. Padoa-Schioppa also served as Chairman of the G-10 Committee on Payments and Settlement Systems, and a member of the European Central Bank’s six-member Executive Board. Promontory Financial Group, founded by Eugene A. Ludwig, former U.S. Comptroller of the Currency, is a premiere financial and regulatory consultancy firm the financial services industry throughout the world.

Mr. Ludwig, who is also Promontory’s Chief Executive Officer, said that Mr. Padoa-Schioppa will provide strategic advice and counsel on emerging international risk-management and control standards and regulations for Promontory clients.

“Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa is a renowned financial-policy leader who is highly respected by central bankers and finance ministers everywhere,” said Mr. Ludwig. “He is one of the world's most knowledgeable experts on the Basel capital rules and other standards for financial institutions, and we know he will be a valuable addition to the service we provide our clients.”

He will operate out of Paris and Rome and can be reached through Promontory’s Washington office.

From 1993 to 1997, Mr. Padoa-Schioppa was Chairman of the Basel Committee on Bank Supervision, where he led the work to extend capital requirements for market risks and to elaborate and adopt the Core Principles on Banking Supervision, which are now applied worldwide.

He served as Chairman of the G-10 Committee on Payments and Settlement Systems from 2000 to 2005, where the committee assumed a key new role as a standard-setting body under his leadership. In particular, it published in 2001, the Core Principles for Systemically Important Payment Systems. Together with the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO), it also published in 2001, the Recommendations for Securities Settlement Systems, and in 2004, the Recommendations for Central Counterparties. In 2005, it published a consultative report, General Guidance for Payment System Development. Mr. Padoa-Schioppa in 2004 published with MIT Press, The Euro and Its Central Bank: Getting United After the Union.

Mr. Padoa-Schioppa was a member of the European Central Bank's six-member Executive Board from its founding in 1998 until 2005, Director-General for Economic and Financial Affairs at the Commission of European Communities, Deputy Director General of the Banca d'Italia, and Chairman of the Commissione Nazionale per le Societa e la Borsa (CONSOB), Italy’s securities regulator. He is the author of, “The Road to Monetary Union in Europe,” (2000), “Regulating Finance,” (2004), and other books, essays, and articles.

Mr. Padoa-Schioppa graduated from Bocconi University, Milan, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He began his financial services career in 1968 at the Bank of Italy.

Promontory Financial Group , headquartered in Washington, DC, has offices in New York, San Francisco, and Tokyo. It was founded by Mr. Ludwig, with others, including Dr. Alan Blinder, former Vice Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Promontory team also includes Senior Adviser Arthur Levitt, former SEC Chairman, and Non-Executive Chairman, Frank Zarb, former Chairman and CEO of the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD) and the NASDAQ Stock Market, Inc.

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