London, May 12, 2005

MTS is pleased to announce strong growth in its covered bond markets in 2005 with the addition of new dealers contributing to record turnover on both the MTS Cedulas market and on the BondVision dealer-to-client market.

The MTS Cedulas Market, which was launched in January 2005, now includes 28 participants, 22 of which act as Market Makers. Further, trading in Cedulas on both EuroCredit MTS and the MTS Cedulas Market showed strong growth with healthy volumes in the first four months of the year. Turnover was €7.365 billion, or a daily average of €120 million for the first quarter, and rose to a record daily average of €170 million in April, or a total of €3.55 billion for the month.

The covered bond segment on BondVision, the dealer-to-client market of the MTS Group, also experienced strong growth. Eight new dealers began providing liquidity for their clients on covered bonds and the agency/quasi-sovereign segment in 2005, including Barclays Capital, Deutsche Bank and UBS, which joined within the last week. Seventeen dealers now provide liquidity for the covered bonds segment, which now includes all jumbo covered bond issues (greater than €1 billion of outstanding) for Pfandbriefe, Cedulas, Obligations Foncieres, ACS, UK covered bonds and Italian CDP.

BondVision witnessed a record quarter in terms of covered and agency bond volumes with more than €3 billion traded in the first quarter of 2005, a 62% increase over the previous quarter.

Notes to Editors

1. Current list of 28 Participants on MTS Cedulas Market
   
   Market Makers

   ABN-AMRO Barclays Capital Bayerische Hypo und Vereinsbank BNP Paribas Calyon Citigroup Global Markets Commerzbank Credit Suisse First Boston Deutsche Bank Dresdner DZ Bank

   Goldman Sachs International HSBC-CCF IXIS CIB JP Morgan Landesbank Baden-Wuerttemberg Nomura International Royal Bank of Scotland SEB Société Générale UBS WestLB AG

   
   
   Price Takers

   Bayerische Landesbank Danske Bank Fortis Bank

   Merrill Lynch Norddeutsche Landesbank Nordea Bank

   
   
2. Current list of 17 BV dealers on covered bonds
   
   

   Banca IMI Barclays Capital BNP Paribas Ixis CIB Calyon Credit Suisse First Boston Deutsche Bank Dresdner Bank Fortis Bank

   HSBC JP Morgan Securities Lehman Brothers International Morgan Stanley International Nomura International Societe Generale UBM UBS

   
   
3. MTS Group
   
   The MTS Group of companies collectively comprises Europe’s premier electronic market in fixed-income securities with average transaction volumes of 85 billion euros a day (single-counted). The MTS model utilizes a common trading platform, although corporate governance and market supervision remain with the domestic financial community. The MTS Group of companies include the following wholesale markets: EuroMTS, EuroCredit MTS, NewEuroMTS, MTS Quasi-Government Market, Eurobenchmark Treasury Bills Market, EuroMTS Linkers Market, MTS Cedulas Market, MTS Amsterdam, MTS Austrian Market, MTS Belgium, MTS Denmark, MTS Deutschland, MTS España, MTS Finland, MTS France, MTS Greek Market, MTS Ireland, MTS Italy, MTS Poland and MTS Portugal. The Group also includes BondVision, the Internet-based multi-dealer-to-client platform and MTSNext, the company that manages the EuroMTS Indices, the first range of independent, transparent, real-time and tradable eurozone fixed income indices. Tradable products on the Telematico markets comprise Austrian, Belgian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Irish, Italian, Lithuanian, Polish, Portuguese, Slovakian and Spanish government bonds, quasi government bonds of EIB, KfW, Freddie Mac and CADES, Pfandbriefe, Obligations Foncières, Cédulas, Irish ACS and UK covered bonds.
   
   More information is available on www.mtsgroup.org