Strong growth at Clearstream for May 2006

In May the number of monthly international transactions processed rose 57 percent to 2.38 million (May 2005: 1.52 million). Of these transactions, 71 percent were Over the Counter (OTC) transactions and 29 percent were registered as stock exchange transactions. Domestic settlement transactions in Germany increased 68 percent reaching 4.00 million compared to 2.38 million for the same period last year. Of these transaction 70 percent were stock exchange transactions and 30 percent OTC transactions.

The value of assets under custody on behalf of customers rose to € 9.1 trillion, a 12 percent rise from May 2005 (€ 8.1 trillion). Securities held under custody in Clearstream’s international business experienced a rise of 11 percent from € 3.6 trillion to € 4.0 trillion. On the domestic German business, securities held under custody rose by 13 percent from € 4.5 trillion to € 5.0 trillion.

For the Global Securities Financing services monthly average outstandings reached € 240.3 billion. The combined services, which include tripartite repo, collateral management and securities lending, collectively experienced a rise of 35 percent from the same month last year (May 2005: €
177.9 billion).

Clearstream Banking's investment funds services also reached record with
383,087 transactions processed, over 141 percent more than in May 2005 (158,533).