Press

Eurex Bonds, the electronic trading platform operated jointly by Eurex, the international derivatives exchange, and leading bond-trading firms, is continuing to expand its network of participants. Since March 12, Deka Bank Deutsche Girozentrale has been active as a new trading participant on Eurex Bonds. Carr Futures SNC is another clearing member of Eurex Clearing AG that has been admitted to Eurex Bonds. The derivatives exchange reported the news on Friday. A total of 23 participants are active on Eurex Bonds, including the German Finance Agency and the German Bundesbank, which make use of this platform exclusively. Further banks have submitted letters of intent for connection to the platform and are now in the simulation phase.

Eurex Bonds, like Eurex Repo, rounds out the Eurex portfolio of products and services in the fixed-income segment. As reported, trading activity by its market participants increased by more than 100 percent in March 2003 compared with the year before, and was 12 percent higher than in February 2003. Eurex Bonds turned over 16.75 billion euros (single counting) in March, as compared with 14.87 billion and 8.06 billion euros, respectively, in February 2003 and March 2002. The volume traded in March 2003 corresponds to a daily
average of 800 million euros.

The electronic bond-trading platform Eurex Bonds offers trading and clearing of German government bonds as well as in issues of the KfW (Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau), the European Investment Bank, individual German states and Jumbo Pfandbriefe. Moreover, with its basis-trading facility, Eurex Bonds provides an attractive product combination of bonds and futures contracts traded at Eurex.