Paris, October 20, 1998 -- French government securities will remain the sole underlying assets for March 1999 deliveries of the Euro 5-year future and the Euro Notional bond future.

Trading in the March 1999 delivery of the Euro 5-year contract and the related option will open on Wednesday, 21 October. Deliverable securities are French-government OATs and BTANs representing an outstanding total of FRF 468 billion. Trading in the option expiring in January 1999 will also open on October 21.

Trading in the March 1999 delivery of the Euro Notional bond contract and the related option has been open since Tuesday, 6 October. Underlying assets, made up exclusively of French government OATs, represent an outstanding total of FRF 369 billion. Trading in the option expiring in January 1999 has also been open since October 6.

Trading in March deliveries of the Euro 5-year and Euro Notional contracts was suspended on 1 September and 28 August, respectively, to allow time for a committee of European bond market experts to consider the advisability of including non-French sovereign issues in underlying assets. Following this examination and in view of yield spreads between French and other euro-zone sovereign issues, Matif SA has decided to maintain a single-issuer base¹. This position will be reviewed in connection with the opening of trading in June 1999 deliveries, which has been postponed to the beginning of 1999.

1: On 19 October, spreads between French and German government issues were around 10 basis points on the 5-year segment and 15 basis points on the 10-year segment.

Appendix:
deliverable securities for March 1999 maturities of the Euro 5-year and Euro Notional contracts.

Contacts:
Antoinette Bouvier-Darpy - Tel.: + 33 1 40 28 83 89
Nathalie Boschat - Tel. : + 44 171 332 59 20