Further growth at Clearstream for August 2004

Clearstream announced that in August 2004 the core business figures showed extended growth levels across the custody and settlement division of the Deutsche Börse Group. The value of assets held in custody on behalf of customers rose to approximately EUR 7.4 trillion, a rise of 1.0 percent from the same month last year. The breakdown of this growth shows advances of 9.2 percent for international assets and declines of 4.5 percent for domestic assets.

The number of international transactions processed by Clearstream rose to 11.5 million year to date August 2004, an increase of 6.4 percent year on year (January to August 2003: 10.8 million). 18 percent of these transactions are registered as stock exchange transactions, 82 percent as Over the Counter (OTC) transactions. The introduction of the equity central counterparty in March 2003 continues to result in efficiency gains that affect domestic transactions. As expected, the corresponding number for domestic transactions decreased by 31 percent from 32.9 million in 2003 to 22.7 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 grew rapidly with customer interactions reaching another new record level of 1.2 million during August, representing an increase of 20 percent from the previous month. The number of registered users of CreationOnline increased last month by 1,774 to reach a total of 13,316 across 77 countries.

Clearstream’s investment funds service showed further volume increases with the number of investment funds related instructions processed reaching over 121,800 in August 2004, a rise of 22 percent from the same month last year (August 2003: 99,800).

Also in August, Clearstream announced that via its Danish depository Danske Bank, it now offers access to the Icelandic market enabling customers to settle free of payment transactions in Icelandic government debt executed on the Icelandic Stock Exchange (ICEX). With this addition, Clearstream’s network now reaches 40 markets around the globe: 24 in Europe, five in the Americas, ten in the Asia Pacific region and in South Africa and this network is the widest of any international central securities depository and enables counterparties in local markets to efficiently settle eligible securities through Clearstream’s operational hub in Luxembourg.