Clearstream Sees Gains Across the Board in July

July 2013 proved to be a strong month for Clearstream, as the ICSD saw improvements in several areas year over year.

Clearstream’s Investment Funds Services (IFS) business saw the largest percentage gain in July, as Clearstream processed 20% more transactions last month than in July 2012. Year-to-date, total IFS transactions were 30% higher than last year (4.6 million compared to 3.5 million last year).

Last month, the company’s total assets under custody increased 3% in value compared to July 2012, as the total value reached €11.5 trillion. This increase came as result of gains in Clearstream’s holdings both internationally (€6.1 trillion total value, a 1% increase) and domestically in Germany (€5.4 trillion, up 6%).

Total settlement transactions processed also went up, with an increase from 9.4 million transactions in July 2012 to 10 million in July 2013, a 7% increase. This gain also came as a result of higher volumes internationally (6%) and domestically (7%). Internationally, Clearstream processed more transactions over-the-counter last month, with 86% of activity being OTC compared to 83% in July 2012. OTC transactions also increased year over year domestically from 34% to 36%, but stock exchange transactions still made up the majority, representing 64% of German transactions.

For Global Securities Financing (GSF) services, which is made up of triparty repo, securities lending and collateral management, the monthly average outstanding increased 2% year over year in July, but the year-to-date average is still down 2% (€572 billion compared to €582.5 billion last year).

“We continue to see a very strong appetite in the market for all of our risk and liquidity management solutions,” said Stefan Lepp, head of GSF and an executive board member at Clearstream. “The European Central Bank’s Long-Term Refinancing Operation (LTRO) has given the market access to cheap liquidity which is why the GSF monthly average outstandings are slightly lower than at the beginning of the year. Despite the monetary policy intervention, which is a temporary phenomenon, our outstandings are 2% above July 2012 levels, which shows that we are well on track.”