Clearstream Sees Strong Growth In November 2004

Clearstream experienced strong growth throughout its core businesses in November 2004. The value of assets held in custody on behalf of customers rose to approximately EUR 7.6 trillion, a rise of 3.3 percent from the same month last year. The number of international transactions processed by Clearstream rose to 15.7 million year to date November 2004, an increase of 3.2 percent year on year (January to November 2003: 15.2 million). 17 percent of these transactions are registered as stock exchange transactions, 83 percent as Over the Counter (OTC) transactions. The efficiencies delivered through the introduction of the equity central counterparty in March 2003 continues to affect domestic settlement transactions in Germany. As expected, the corresponding number for domestic transactions decreased by 28.8 percent from 42.4 million in 2003 to 30.2 million year to date 2004 with a ratio of 65 percent stock exchange transactions to 35 percent OTC transactions.

Within the Global Securities Financing services business at Clearstream strong growth continues to develop with the monthly average outstandings exceeding EUR 140 billion for the first time. The combined services include tripartite repo, securities lending and collateral management and for November 2004 the average of collateral under management amounted to EUR 142.3 billion representing a rise of over 23 percent from the same month last year (November 2003: EUR 114.9 billion).

Clearstream’s investment funds service showed further volume increases with the number of investment funds related instructions processed reaching 149,822 in November 2004, a rise of 29 percent from the same month last year (November 2003: 115,336). Next month, Clearstream will launch an enhanced version of its investment funds service called Vestima+.

Clearstream also experienced growth levels with its CreationOnline real-time information service as customer interactions reached another new record level of 1.76 million during November 2004, representing an increase of 3.5 percent from the previous month. The number of registered users of CreationOnline increased last month by 790 to reach a total of 15,785 across 78 countries.