NOTES TO THE CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS Amounts in EUR millions COMMITMENTS AND CONTINGENCIES FUTURE LEASE PAYMENTS The bonds and other fixed rate investments function mainly as collateral granted by AEGON subsidiaries abroad, to meet legal requirements and also include collateral guarantees given by subsidiaries under reciprocal insurance contracts. The guarantees on ceded and securitized mortgage loans cover the interest rate risk at early redemption of these loans. Standby letters of credit amounts reflected above are the liquidity commitment notional amounts. AEGON enters into agreements to provide liquidity for high quality multi-seller asset backed commercial paper conduits and municipal variable rate demand note facilities. Management does not anticipate any future funding requirements that would have a material effect on reported financial results. A significant portion of the guarantees represent an agreement with a fund of funds manager to pay 50% of the excess of the amount of principal protection over the value of the fund of fund assets at the maturity of the principal protection instrument. At December 31, 2003, the notional amount of the principal protection was EUR 271 million, which represents the maximum amount of potential future payments (undiscounted). AEGON earns a fee in exchange for providing the principal protection and, at December 31, 2003, the maturities of the underlying fund portfolios were for 2004: EUR 19 million; for 2005: EUR 21 million; for 2006: EUR 120 million; 2007: EUR 63 million; for 2008: EUR 41 million; and thereafter EUR 7 million. The underlying fund portfolios are restricted as to investment instruments held and are required, upon a decline in value below a formula based threshold, to replace the assets with fixed income instruments in order to minimize the principal protection liability. Accordingly, management does not anticipate any future funding requirements with respect to the principal protection that would have a material effect on reported financial results.  Guarantees further include guarantees given on account of asset management commitments. In this regard, besides the guarantees shown in the table, guarantees have been given for unlimited amounts. Other commitments include private placement commitments, mortgage loan commitments, and limited partnership commitments. Certain insurance and investment products have minimum guarantees for which provisions have been made in the technical provisions and are therefore not included in the above table. These guarantees are discussed in note 14. AEGON has also guaranteed certain credit lines and commercial paper of Transamerica Finance Corporation. These guarantees  are not included in the above table. Transamerica Finance Corporation had EUR 2,256 million in commercial paper outstanding at December 31, 2003.  AEGON GROUP ANNUAL REPORT 2003 106 Under non-cancellable operating lease contracts for office buildings, future minimum lease payments amount to: A significant portion of operating leases is for agency and administration offices. 2003 2002 INVESTMENTS CONTRACTED Real estate (5) (100) Mortgage loans 392 366 Bonds and registered debentures: Purchase 0 0 Sale (51) 0 Private placements 16 84 Other: Purchase 451 552 Sale 0 0 2003 2002 Less than one year 77 64 Between one and five years 212 218 More than five years 194 342 483 624 2003 2002 COLLATERAL AND GUARANTEES GIVEN TO THIRD PARTIES Bonds and registered debentures 2,373 2,435 Ceded and securitized mortgage loans 5,091 3,792 Standby letters of credit 964 1,022 Guarantees 287 316 Other commitments 827 955 Other collateral and guarantees 559 0