Clearstream's Vestima Service For Investment Funds Reaches STP Rates Of 91 Percent; Transaction Volumes Rise 166 Percent During 2003

Clearstream International announced today that its innovative investment fund service called Vestima has shown a steady climb in straight-through processing (STP) rates and now averages over 91 percent for connected funds distributors activity. This achievement is made more significant by the fact that it has been achieved during a period where there has been a strong surge in transaction volumes (up 166 percent) against the comparable period in 2002.

The Vestima solution was designed to improve efficiency by providing a single access point and reducing errors resulting from manual processing. Clearstream considers that maximising STP rates (percentage of transactions being processed without any manual intervention) is the only proven way to solve distribution issues and reduce trading and processing costs in the investment funds industry. The figures show that by integrating fund managers, distributors and transfer agents on the same platform, Vestima is delivering an STP solution that no other service in the marketplace can provide.

The benefits of the STP service have attracted a stream of new customers in the last few months including fund distributors such as ABN Amro (Luxembourg) and transfer agencies including Custom House Administration and Corporate Services (Dublin), Bisys Funds Services (Dublin) and Credit Suisse Asset Management Fund Services (Luxembourg). These companies join a list of the largest players in the investment fund industry now using Vestima and this trend is expected to continue as Clearstream develops the service to meet their wider needs.

Volker Potthoff, Managing Director Banking & Custody Services at Clearstream said: "STP is a key requirement for the entire funds industry to deliver cost efficiencies. Our Vestima service was designed to deliver an STP solution meaning our customers can achieve efficiencies that no other market solution can provide because they offer more manual services. Our new stream of customers and surge in volumes confirm, once again, our abilities to deliver effective solutions to both domestic and offshore markets and we will continue to make further enhancements to this service to ease the task of transaction processing for our customers."

Today, Vestima has over 10,000 funds available on the service and currently covers the vast majority of the important Luxembourg market. Clearstream continues to expand and strengthen its service and is strongly committed to delivering innovative solutions to the Investment Funds community in Europe.