Deutsche Börse Group Reports Exchange Trading Gets Off To Smooth And Punctual Start In The Year 2000 - Connection Tests With Market Participants Successfully Completed Over The New Year's Weekend

The trading, clearing and information systems of the Deutsche Börse Group resumed operations on Monday. Trading on Eurex began at 8:00 a.m., Xetra and the trading floor of FWB, Frankfurt Stock Exchange, started as scheduled at 9:00 a.m. Dr.-Ing. Michael Kuhn, member of the executive board of Deutsche Börse AG, characterized the changeover activities as an investment in the future. "The corporate group has profited from the preparations in a dual respect," Kuhn said. The company got the electronic trading, clearing and information systems ready for the date change and optimized them further at the same time. The changeover activities during the New Year's weekend were carried out in two main steps: December 31, 1999 was characterized by activities in preparation for the year change. On January 1, shortly after midnight, the infrastructure tests were run, and around 1:00 a.m. the systems were started up again. Then, as of 9:00 a.m., the Deutsche Börse applications were available to participants for tests. By January 1, at 7:00 p.m., customers were connected with a market volume of more than 90 percent in all. At the end of January 2, roughly 760 of the Group's participants from Europe and the US were back online. According to Deutsche Börse, no conclusive assessment can be made regarding the success of the date changeover until after the close of trading on Monday and the so-called batch run of the systems, in which the data from the first trading day are processed.