Paris, December 9th, 1998 -- On Friday, 15 January 1999, Matif SA will begin trading a new multi-issuer contract covering the two-year segment of the euro yield curve. Trading in France is totally electronic on the NSC system.

The new product will be called the 2-Year E-Note. Deliverable securities spans the 1.5-2.5 year segment and include the best sovereign issues in the euro zone. Eligible issues represent a minimum outstanding amount of 5 billion euro each, which limits any risk of a squeeze despite the relatively narrow segment chosen.

Matif SA's committee of international experts, representing main market users, approved the composition of the underlying pool at a meeting on December 2. This will gradually be expanded to reflect convergence resulting from the unification of European monetary policy. The first deliveries opened-March 1999 and June 1999-will consist solely of French and German securities, which currently represent an outstanding amount of 70 billion euro.

For ease of use, the nominal value of the contract has been set at 100,000 euro, identical to other fixed-income contracts traded on Matif.

The 2-year E-Note contract rounds out Matif's line of euro-denominated products, which now covers all points of the euro yield curve:

• 3-month Euribor futures and the related option
• Euro 5-year and Euro Notional futures, single issuer contracts for the March 1999 delivery, and related options
• for the 30-year segment, the E-Bond contract based on French, German and Dutch issues.

"The 2-Year E-Note contract to be launched January 15 is a direct reflection of Matif's commitment to developing a line of interest-rate products adapted to users' needs in the new pan-European market," said Pascal Samaran, CEO of Matif SA and Monep SA. "Today Matif is the only futures market to offer contracts designed for the euro zone as a whole".

Appendices: Specification and deliverable securities

Contacts:
Antoinette Bouvier-Darpy, tel. +33 (0)1 40 28 83 89
Nathalie Boschat, tel. + 44 171 332 59 20