As part of the employee share option plan Erste Bank has issued 1.7m new shares. Shares bought under the management and employee program have a lock-up period of one year. The equity capital of Erste Bank has therefore increased by EUR 3.48m to EUR 486.4m and the number of shares has risen by less than 1% to 243,183,500 from 241,442,892. Trading in the new shares commenced on 30 June 2005 in Vienna and Prague.