Prudency Release

As you may well know we are being pushed by Arthur Andersen to bring our
prudency policy in line with that of North America. In response to these
pressures, we have conducted a thorough review of our prudency policy and
have determined that all discretionary prudency and general reserves
(including VAR based prudency) should be eliminated. Deal specific prudency
will, however, remain. In order to avoid any arguments with AA near the
quarter end the release to the London summary DPR should happen today for the
August month end.

Apologies for the short notice but the final decision was only made very
recently. Please pass this message around to those people in your groups who
are not on the above mail list so that 'everyone' is aware of the change.

If there are any questions please let me know.

James