The number of international transactions processed by Clearstream rose to 10.2 million year to date July 2004, an increase of 6.0 percent year on year (January to July 2003: 9.7 million). 19 percent of these transactions are registered as stock exchange transactions, 81 percent as Over the Counter (OTC) transactions. The introduction of the equity central counterparty in March 2003 resulted in efficiency gains that continue to affect domestic transactions. As expected, the corresponding number for domestic transactions decreased by 32 percent from 39.8 million in 2003 to 30.7 million year to date 2004 with a ratio of 66 percent stock exchange transactions to 34 percent OTC transactions.
In other business areas, Clearstream's CreationOnline real-time information service continues to grow with the number of customer interactions reaching another new record level of 1 million during July, representing an increase of 7 percent from the previous month. The number of registered users of CreationOnline increased last month by 977 to reach a total of 11,542 across 77 countries.
Clearstream's investment funds service showed further volume increases with the number of investment funds related instructions processed reaching over 130,750 in July 2004, a rise of 20 percent from the same month last year (July 2003: 109,000). Additionally, Clearstream has announced a series of customers who have confirmed they will implement the new Vestima+ service later this year and Clearstream has entered into an agreement with BNP Paribas Securities Services which will effectively open up the French fund market for foreign fund distributors.
Additionally, Clearstream has recently received an 'Elite Quality Award' for its funds transfer operations area from JPMorgan Chase Bank for 2003. As part of the review, JPMorgan Chase found that Clearstream achieved 'operating excellence' with a 99.17% straight-through processing (STP) rate.
