CME Chairman Terry Duffy and CME Chief Executive Officer Craig Donohue marked the opening of the new hub in Dublin with Irish Minister of Finance Charlie McGreevy and Mary McDonnell, President and CEO of Geneva Trading, which is a key CME customer that is among the first to benefit from the new Dublin telecommunications hub.

CME installed its first hub in London in January 2002. Two additional telecommunications hubs will open in Milan and Paris later this year.

"Europe continues to be an important market for CME," said Duffy. "Over the past 12 months, we have launched a number of strategic initiatives designed to increase GLOBEX accessibility and cost effectiveness for European market users. Adding these telecommunications hubs in key financial centers will help our European customers to greatly reduce their GLOBEX connectivity charges. In some cases, the savings will be as much as 75 percent of current costs. The hubs also will help CME attract new customers to our electronic marketplace."

"The launch of these additional hubs is part of our ongoing strategy to dramatically expand global distribution and access to GLOBEX," added Donohue. "The strong volume growth on GLOBEX, which is currently up 44 percent from the same period last year, suggests we are succeeding in bringing new customers to CME who find our products to be an attractive alternative to comparable Euro- denominated products."

Customers using the hubs will connect to GLOBEX via a 2 megabit (E1) circuit ordered through the carrier of their choice.