June 30, 2006

The Bank of Russia has registered National Clearing Center Bank as a lending institution.

Founders of National Clearing Center Bank are the Moscow Interbank Currency Exchange (98% of the charter capital) and not-for-profit partnership The National Depository Center (2%). The charter capital of National Clearing Center Bank is 235 million rubles. It is expected that by the time the Bank begins providing clearing services its charter capital will be raised to 700 million rubles.

National Clearing Center Bank will provide clearing in exchange-based and OTC markets. This includes determining obligations of participants in clearing, offsetting these obligations and organizing the performance of obligations for transactions in compliance with the RF laws.

National Clearing Center Bank is expected to develop an appropriate system of risk management for the Russian financial market▓s settlement and clearing infrastructure, considering the abolition of 100% deposition of funds by participants, and introduce the Central Counterparty mechanism. The Bank is also expected to improve interaction between participants in the Russian market and international financial institutions and foreign investors. These tasks will be preformed on the basis of the MICEX▓s unified platform, which is to be upgraded in future.

National Clearing Center Bank may become Russia▓s first specialized clearing lending institution providing centralized clearing in the orderly capital market. In 2006, the MICEX intends to begin providing clearing for transactions in foreign exchange and derivative financial instruments. It is expected that in future, National Clearing Center Bank will provide clearing in the market of government and corporate securities and organize clearing for OTC transactions.