Contact: 

LCH.Clearnet: Michael March – Director, Corporate Communications
Tel: +44 (0)20 7426 7234

Euroclear: Denis Peters - Director, Corporate Communications
Tel: +32 (0)2 326 2618

LCH.Clearnet Ltd and Euroclear Bank unveil new service to manage margin obligations

Brussels and London, 06 August 2007

Euroclear Bank and LCH.Clearnet Ltd jointly announce today a new opportunity for LCH.Clearnet Ltd members to pledge securities through Euroclear Bank’s triparty collateral management service to cover their margin obligations with LCH.Clearnet Ltd. The new service is effective today.

LCH.Clearnet Ltd will continue to manage margin requirements for its members, with Euroclear Bank serving as a neutral agent to optimise the use of collateral for mutual clients. The Euroclear Bank service provides exposure matching, collateral allocation and mark-to-market valuations, margin calls and securities substitutions. The service covers transactions for which LCH.Clearnet Ltd acts as central counterparty in equity and commodity derivatives, fixed income and swaps.

Olivier Grimonpont, Director and Head of Collateral Services and Securities Lending and Borrowing at Euroclear Bank, commented: “As we serve many of the same clients, Euroclear Bank is a natural partner for LCH.Clearnet Ltd and its members, which continuously seek new cost-efficient ways of managing margin requirements. This new service represents another possibility for our clients to consolidate their collateral management across more business streams – margin management, securities lending, repo and derivatives.”

Colin Woodley, Head of Operations at LCH.Clearnet Ltd, said: “We are very pleased to introduce this valuable extension to our collateral management service, which will result in cost and operational process savings for our members across the full range of markets served by LCH.Clearnet Ltd.”

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Note to Editors

Triparty collateral management at Euroclear Bank, the international central securities depository of the Euroclear group, has surpassed EUR 350 billion outstanding per day. In its capacity as a neutral third-party collateral administrator, in effect, Euroclear Bank in-sources the management of collateral on behalf of its clients to cover exposures arising from central counterparty margin requirements, as well as repo, securities lending, secured loan and derivatives transactions. Euroclear Bank’s triparty collateral management services optimise the relationship between collateral management and securities settlement by automating the selection and substitution of securities used as collateral throughout the life of each transaction. Encompassing a wide range of securities, the service is used by the world’s most active counterparties and is supported by a solid legal structure in Belgium.

Euroclear is the world's largest provider of domestic and cross-border settlement and related services for bond, equity and fund transactions. User owned and user governed, the Euroclear group comprises the international central securities depository (CSD) Euroclear Bank, based in Brussels, as well as national CSDs Euroclear Belgium, Euroclear France, Euroclear Nederland and Euroclear UK & Ireland. In early 2007, Euroclear acquired EMXCo, the UK’s leading provider of investment-fund order routing. The total value of securities transactions settled by the Euroclear group is in excess of EUR 450 trillion per annum, while assets held for clients are valued at more than EUR 18 trillion. Euroclear Bank is rated AA+ by Standard & Poor's and Fitch Ratings.

For more information, please consult www.euroclear.com

LCH.Clearnet is currently owned 67.6% by users, 17.8% by exchanges with the balance of 14.6% being held by Euroclear. Upon completion of the Euronext share buy-back programme by 2009, the Group will be owned 73.3% by users, 10.9% by exchanges and 15.8% by Euroclear.

LCH.Clearnet is committed to operating under strict principles of non-discrimination across its user base. LCH.Clearnet serves major international exchanges and platforms, equity, exchange-traded derivatives, energy, interbank interest rate swaps markets and the majority of the Euro-denominated and sterling bond and repo markets.

For more information, please consult www.lchclearnet.com