We provide regular information to our shareholders and to the financial community.

We meet with institutional investors worldwide throughout the year, and regularly hold results presentations, special investor seminars, road shows, and individual and group meetings. Where possible, meetings involve senior management as well as members of the investor relations team. We make use of diverse technologies such as webcasting, audio links and cross-location videoconferencing to widen our audience and maintain contact with shareholders around the world.

Once a year, unless they explicitly choose not to, registered shareholders receive a summary of our annual report in the form of a review booklet. It provides an overview of the firm, our strategy as well as our activities during the year and some key financial information. Each quarter, shareholders are mailed a brief update on our quarterly financial performance. Shareholders can also request our complete financial reports, produced on a quarterly and annual basis, free of charge.

To ensure fair access to and dissemination of our financial information, we make our publications available to all shareholders at the same time.

Based on discussions with analysts and investors, we believe that the market rewards companies that provide clear, consistent and informative disclosure about their business. Therefore, we aim to communicate our strategy and results in a manner that allows shareholders and investors to gain an understanding of how our company works, what our growth prospects are and what risks our strategy and results might entail. Feedback from analysts and investors is continually assessed and, where we consider appropriate, reflected in our quarterly and annual reports. To continue to achieve these goals, we apply the following principles in our financial reporting and disclosure:

• Transparency in disclosure enhances understanding of the economic drivers and builds trust and credibility.

• Consistency in disclosure within each reporting period and between reporting periods.

• Simplicity in disclosure allows readers to gain an understanding of the performance of our businesses.

• Relevance in disclosure avoids information overload by focusing on what is required by regulation or statute and is relevant to our stakeholders.

• Best practice in line with industry norms, leading the way to improved standards where possible.

We report our results after the end of every quarter, including a breakdown of results by business division and extensive disclosures relating to credit and market risk.

Our financial statements are prepared according to IFRS as issued by the International Accounting Standards Board.

We are committed to maintaining the transparency of our reported results and to ensuring that analysts and investors can make meaningful comparisons with previous periods. If there is a major reorganization of our business divisions, or if changes to accounting standards or interpretations lead to a material change in the Group's reported results, our results are restated for previous periods when required by applicable accounting standards, to show how they would have been reported according to the new basis and provide clear explanations of all relevant changes.

In accordance with Section 404 of the US Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, our management is responsible for establishing and maintaining adequate internal control over financial reporting. The financial statements of this report contain management's assessment of the effectiveness of internal control over financial reporting, as of 31 December 2010. The external auditors' report on this assessment is also included in this report.