Deutsche Boerse Group: Clearstream International Announces Further Development Plans For Investment Funds Service - Vestima

Clearstream International announced today that it was further developing Vestima, its Investment Funds Service, through the acquisition of Filinks from CDC Ixis Capital Markets. Filinks, through its technology called FORS, has developed a unique capability which enables STP efficiencies in the domestic order routing process for the investment funds industry. Clearstream has identified that this technology is complementary to its existing Vestima service and has now completed the purchase of the company.

Both Vestima and FORS will now be integrated together to deliver an advanced solution to resolve the recognised market inefficiencies. The acquisition is expected to positively enhance revenues from the Vestima service from Q4 2003 onwards.

Clearstream is in a unique position through its existing wide customer base and its location in Luxembourg to offer high quality services to the investment funds industry. Clearstream will also now be looking to expand its service to domestic markets around Europe following its successful introduction to the offshore market segment.

Vestima was first introduced in October 2000 and is an innovative STP solution for investment fund processing. It enables fund orders to be processed without manual intervention and so reduces the costs and risks traditionally associated with manual processing. Vestima is fully integrated into the Creation Platform, which makes it simple for existing Clearstream customers to work with Vestima, since they do not have to transfer existing fund positions or open new accounts. Since its introduction, Vestima has attracted the largest players in the investment funds industry including UBS, Flemings, Schroders and Threadneedle Investments.

André Roelants, President and CEO of Clearstream stated, "This acquisition is very important to us as we are seeking to build upon the success of Vestima by further enhancing its capabilities. The Filinks technology and the team of people involved will bring extra expertise and experience to Clearstream as we look to further develop our services to the investment funds industry. This acquisition demonstrates our commitment to bring solutions to what is today a real problem area within the industry."

Joining Clearstream through this deal is Bruno Zutterling, President of Filinks, who added, "We are very excited about the future possibilites of growth within the investment funds industry and combining our strengths with Clearstream presents a unique opportunity to develop a service offering that the industry needs. The growth potential is considerable and we are now perfectly positioned to develop our services with Clearstream. Further information about Filinks is available from www.filinks.com