In December 2008, the value of assets under custody held on behalf of customers registered an almost 6% decrease to 10.2 trillion (compared to 10.8 trillion in December 2007), primarily due to lower equity market valuations. Securities held under custody in Clearstreams international business experienced a rise of almost 7% from 4.9 trillion in December 2007 to 5.2 trillion in December 2008 while domestic German securities held under custody decreased by almost 16% from 5.9 trillion in December 2007 to 5.0 trillion in December 2008. For 2008, yearly average of the value of assets under custody held on behalf of customers reached 10.6 trillion compared to 10.5 trillion in 2007, an increase of 1%.
In December 2.67 million international transactions were processed, an almost 18% rise over December 2007 (2.26 million). International Over the Counter (OTC) bond transactions grew by more than 41% from 0.93 million to 1.31 million in December 2008. Of all international transactions, 71% were OTC transactions and 29% were registered as stock exchange transactions. For 2008, Clearstream therefore processed 29.96 million international transactions, a decrease of around 12% compared to 2007, despite a rise of 28% in OTC bond transactions.
On the German domestic market, settlement transactions reached 7.08 million, almost 17% more than in December 2007 (6.05 million). Of these transactions, 66% were stock exchange transactions and 34% OTC transactions. In 2008, Clearstream processed 84.32 million domestic settlement transactions compared to 89.16 million in 2007, a decrease of some 5%.
For Global Securities Financing (GSF) services, the monthly average outstandings reached 434.1 billion. The combined services, which include triparty repo, securities lending and collateral management, collectively experienced a rise of over 24% over December 2007 ( 348.0 billion). For the year 2008, monthly average outstandings reached 398.8 billion compared to 332.7 billion in 2007, an increase of almost 20%.
In the Investment Funds services, 477,405 transactions were processed, a 4% increase over December 2007 (458,371). For 2008, 5.2 million transactions were processed, a 20% decrease over 2007 (6.5 million) as a result of reduced European investment funds transactions.
D.C.