ICSDs report strong growth for first half of 2019

Total revenues for Brussels-based Euroclear and Luxembourg-based Clearstream increased 8% and 6% respectively.

By Joe Parsons

Europe’s international central securities depositories (ICSD) have reported strong results for the first half of the year, boosted by their post-trade and fund services businesses.

Total revenues for Brussels-based Euroclear and Luxembourg-based Clearstream increased 8% to €725 million and 6% to €723.8 million respectively, in comparison to the six months ending 30 June 2018.

Assets under custody for both ICSDs improved, with Euroclear reporting a modest growth of 1% to €30 trillion and Clearstream up 2% to €11 trillion.

Euroclear also saw a record number of netted transactions settled within the Euroclear group, which reached 118 million an increase of 2%, in comparison to the same period last year, for a total value of €411 trillion.

“After a record-level year for Euroclear in 2018, continued growth in the underlying key business metrics during the first half of this year have translated into strong performance for the group,” said Lieve Mostrey, CEO, Euroclear.

“This continued upward trend is fuelled by the attractiveness of our customer offer and our unique business model as an independent open architecture financial market infrastructure. We remain confident in our business income growth trajectory, and are committed to delivering long-term, sustainable value for all our key stakeholders.”

Both ICSDs recorded a number of highlights for the first six months of the year, in which Clearstream completed the acquisition of Swisscanto Funds Centre and also announced the takeover of the managed funds service from National Bank of Australia.

Meanwhile, Euroclear signed agreements with Egypt’s Ministry of Finance and Saudi Arabia’s Securities Depository Clearing to develop their market infrastructures, and achieved CSDR authorisation in Belgium, France and Netherlands. 

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