Clearstream sees further growth in February 2005

Clearstream experienced further growth in its core businesses and new business streams in February 2005. The value of assets held in custody on behalf of customers rose to approximately EUR 7.7 trillion, a rise of 2.3 percent from the same month last year. The number of international transactions processed by Clearstream stood unchanged at 3.3 million year to date compared to the same period last year. Of these transactions, 15 percent are registered as stock exchange transactions, 85 percent were Over the Counter (OTC) transactions. For domestic settlement transactions in Germany, the figure stood at 5.4 million year to date representing a decrease of 16 percent on the same period last year (January - February 2004: 6.4 million). The ratio for domestic settlement transactions was 67 percent stock exchange transactions to 33 percent OTC transactions.

Within the Global Securities Financing services business, strong growth continued with the monthly average outstandings reaching EUR 180.7 billion. The combined services include tripartite repo, securities lending and collateral management and collectively experienced a rise of over 55.5 percent from the same month last year (February 2004: EUR 116.2 billion).

Clearstream's enhanced version of its investment funds service called Vestima+ showed further volume increases with the number of investment funds related instructions processed reaching 177,818 in February 2005, a rise of 7.2 percent from the same month last year (February 2004: 136,626).

Yolande Theis and Graham Cope will be happy to answer questions from the news desks: phone +352 2433 1500