PRESS RELEASE

Borsa Italiana, with the constant aim of granting efficiency and quality to the markets, has planned a number of incentives, which, starting form April 1st, 2005 and for the rest of the year, will be applied both to trading and post-trading services with a discount range between 10 and 50%.

Furthermore, for clearing services, in case of participation in more than one market, membership fees will be lowered and as regards settlement services, the campaign is also to include government bonds.

Milan, 23 March 2005

Attached details

Borsa Italiana S.p.a.:

• a 20% discount on the trading fee currently charged for trading transactions on the share market including 500,000 to 1,000,000 executed orders a year, and a 10% discount on the fee charged in excess of this threshold.

Cassa di Compensazione e Garanzia S.p.a.:

• a discount that reduces the clearing fee on the cash market to €0.08 for trading transactions from 700,000 to 2,000,000, and to €0.04 for trading transactions from 2m to 3.6m, as well as a further discount through the introduction of a €0.03 clearing fee for trading operations including over 3.6m transactions;

• as regards the Share BIt section, a 50% discount on the minimum activity charge (MAC), which is consequently to fall to €1,500 (from €3,000);

• a discounted annual membership fee for all members of the cash and derivatives markets, equal to €40,000 for general clearing members, €20,000 for individual clearing members and €10,000 for non clearing members (instead of €45,000, €22,500 and €11,250 respectively).

Monte Titoli S.p.a.:

• a discount that reduces the settlement fee from €0.70 to €0.30 with regard to those orders received on the Express II system by means of the RRG REL service (gross settlement); a discount that reduces from €0.80 to €0.50 the fee for transfers free of charge carried out on the gross RRG REL + Express II platform.