Eurex Clearing is to reduce clearing and settlement fees for equities transactions in Xetra, Deutsche Börse's electronic cash-trading platform, and on the floor of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange by up to 8% from early 2004.

Rudolf Ferscha, member of the executive board of Deutsche Boerse and the chief executive of Eurex, said the price reduction has been made possible by the high level of uptake of the central counterparty (CCP) for equities trading since it was launched at the end of March.