Chicago, December 17, 2005

The Clearing Corporation ("CCorp") is pleased to announce that it has entered into a cross-margining agreement with the Fixed Income Clearing Corporation ("FICC") in order to provide reduced margin requirements to common and affiliated clearing participants who trade certain offsetting securities and futures contracts and options.

The cross-margining program will initially apply to house accounts only and will include the 2, 5, 10 and 30-year Treasury products that are currently listed on the Eurex US futures exchange and that are cleared by CCorp. The Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") reviewed and approved FICC's cross-margining program last month.

"Cross-margining allows clearing participants with offsetting positions in both the primary and derivative markets to realize the benefits of lower margin requirements, thus fostering liquidity in the markets," said Dennis Dutterer, CEO of CCorp. "We are pleased to offer these benefits to our clearing participants."

"Eurex US is delighted with the Clearing Corporation's cross-margining agreement with FICC," said Satish Nandapurkar, CEO of Eurex US. "The potential for reduced trading costs through cross-margining facilitates enhanced market liquidity and benefits our members and their customers."

FICC is a division of the Depository Trust Clearing Corporation ("DTCC"). It was formed on January 1, 2003, through the merger of the Government Securities Clearing Corporation ("GSCC") and the MBS Clearing Corporation ("MBSCC") in order to bring greater synergies, cost reductions and efficiencies to the post-trade processing of fixed income instruments. CCorp previously had a similar cross-margining agreement with the GSCC.

About The Clearing Corporation
The Clearing Corporation, a stockholder-owned, Delaware corporation now in its 79th year of business, is the only active independent futures clearinghouse in the world. Additional information on The Clearing Corporation is available at www.clearingcorp.com.

Media contacts:
CCorp Andrew Yemma, Intermarket Communications +1-212-888-6115 x 225