News Releases

BMO Capital Markets Foreign Exchange Group Garners Global Recognition with Three Awards

TORONTO, March 18, 2011 – BMO Capital Markets, the investment and corporate banking arm of BMO Financial Group (TSX, NYSE: BMO), has won several awards this month for its global leadership in foreign exchange.

BMO has been named the “Best Foreign Exchange (Forex) Provider, North America 2011” by Global Banking & Finance Review. The firm also won the DealMakers Global Award for “Best FX Bank North America, 2011”

“Our Foreign Exchange group is first-class, and these global awards serve to illustrate that,” said Eric Tripp, President, BMO Capital Markets. “Our North American expertise, especially in the Canadian Dollar, is drawing more and more industry attention. This is important as it solidifies us as a leading bank in the region.”

In addition, the China Foreign Exchange Trade System (CFETS) again gave BMO Capital Markets high marks in its annual awards bulletin. For the fourth year in a row, BMO was named one of the Most Popular Market Makers in China, and the Best Non-U.S. Dollar Market Maker. Individual Foreign Exchange team members also received recognition, with Gavin Wang taking the newly introduced Best Head of Trading Award, and Regine Ou receiving the Best Trader Award.

“These awards signify our strong commitment and capability in the global marketplace,” said Jamie Thorsen, Executive Managing Director & Head of Foreign Exchange and China Capital Markets, BMO Capital Markets. “By successfully competing against well-established domestic and international players we elevate our profile in the market, which is always welcome, but ultimately what counts is offering our clients exceptional service and valued expertise. That is something our team prides itself on, and it is something that never changes year-after-year.”

About the Awards
The Global Banking & Finance Review Forex award is conferred by an editorial team with input provided by industry analysts. Their considerations include number of customers, transaction volume, competitive pricing and innovation, among others.

The DealMakers Monthly Global Award recognizes a select number of leading professional firms, across the globe, for their individual areas of specialization, within their geographic location. The votes are gathered through a client poll.

The CFETS awards set out to recognize the best market makers, best member banks, best trading heads and best traders and are compiled by monitoring key indicators in the trading system, such as client coverage, market making ability and response time, among others.

About BMO's Foreign Exchange Group
BMO's Foreign Exchange Group is a team of nearly 100 professionals based in eight cities around the world from Beijing to Chicago. The FX group holds a dominant position in the Canadian-dollar foreign exchange market and is top-ranked by large hedge funds and pension funds for institutional liquidity and pricing capacity. Their recent awards include:

Top 20 FX Bank Globally: 2010, FX Week Magazine Survey
Top 10 of global banks for BMO Economics in 2010, Reuters Foreign Exchange Accuracy Poll
#2 Best bank for Canadian Dollar: 2010, FX Week Magazine Survey
#1 Best bank for Canadian dollar for corporates: 2010, FX Week Magazine Survey
#2 Best bank for Canadian dollar for investors and banks: 2010, FX Week Magazine Survey
#1 “Most Improved Overall Market Share”: 2010, Euromoney FX survey
#1 “Most Improved Market Share by Size Over $250 billion”: 2010, Euromoney FX survey

For more information, visit: http://www.bmocm.com/fx

About BMO in China
BMO Financial Group is the only Canadian bank with branches in Beijing, Guangzhou, Shanghai and Hong Kong, and was only the eighth foreign bank permitted to be headquartered in the capital. BMO also has a representative office in Taipei, Taiwan and an Investment Banking representative office in Beijing. In October 2010, BMO officially opened its new incorporated subsidiary, Bank of Montreal (China) Co. Ltd. (BMO ChinaCo), allowing the bank the flexibility to expand its product and service offerings for North American and Chinese clients. In addition, earlier this year, BMO became the first Canadian bank to offer North American commercial clients the ability to make payments directly to Chinese companies in the Chinese Yuan (CNY).

About BMO Capital Markets
BMO Capital Markets is a leading, full-service North American financial services provider offering equity and debt underwriting, corporate lending and project financing, merger and acquisitions advisory services, merchant banking, securitization, treasury management, market risk management, debt and equity research and institutional sales and trading. BMO Capital Markets has over 2,000 employees operating in 26 locations around the world, including 14 in North America. BMO Capital Markets is a member of BMO Financial Group (NYSE, TSX: BMO), one of the largest diversified financial services providers in North America with CDN$413 billion total assets and 38,000 employees as at January 31, 2011.

Website: http://www.bmocm.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/bmocm

-30-

Media Contact:

Beja Rodeck, Toronto, beja.rodeck@bmo.com (416) 867-3996

Holly Holt, New York, holly.holt@bmo.com, (212) 885-4153

David Mu, Guangzhou, david.mu@bmo.com, 86-20-3815-0238