Eurex Securities Transactions Services (Eurex STS), the new post-trade business owned by Deutsche Boerse, has been granted a German banking licence which it deems a “key milestone” ahead of its launch.
The launch of the buy-in agent service aims to fill a role mandated by the Central Securities Depositories Regulation (CSDR), which obliges the buyer in a securities transaction to initiate a buy-in process against the seller if the settlement of a transaction fails.
The regulation requires a neutral third-party to act as the buy-in agent, which Eurex STS aims to become through its new banking license.
“We are delighted to have received the banking licence from BaFin, and we will continue to work towards launching our new service for the buy-in regime in February 2021,” said Marcus Addison, managing director for Eurex STS. “Our solution leverages our considerable experience in offering trusted securities trading infrastructure to the market – it will provide an automated and standardised solution to assist market participants with regulatory compliance.”
The banking license represents a milestone for the service as it gives them the ability to open accounts and take the next steps to onboarding clients to its system ahead of testing, which include the use of application programming interfaces (APIs) which can automatically set up buy-in requests with same-day settlement.
“Securing the banking licence from BaFin is a significant event for us in the launch of this new service. We have been in contact with many potential clients who are interested in using our service and have been working with them to prepare and optimise their back-office functions in order to make the transition to the new settlement discipline regime as smooth as possible,” added Marcel Naas, managing director at Eurex STS.