47 per cent of all SETS business was netted for settlement in August, using the new CCP facilities introduced in conjunction with CREST at the end of July, says the London Stock Exchange (LSE).
During the month, 24 firms used netting and saw an increase in trading efficiency through reducing the number of settlements by 98 per cent. “Settlement netting, combined with the other automated features used in SETS trading, now provides a highly efficient straight through processing function for the Exchange’s customers.”
The number of trades on SETS, the Exchange’s electronic order book, increased 56 per cent in August 2002 to 2.0 million trades compared with 1.3 million in August 2001. The average daily number of trades on SETS rose 63 per cent from 59,446 in August 2001 to 96,848 in August 2002.
The average daily number of trades on the London Stock Exchange in UK and international shares increased by 11 per cent from 176,786 in August 2001 to 195,538 in August 2002. The number of UK trades rose 21 per cent in August to 3.0 million trades, compared with 2.5 million trades in the same month in 2001. The value of these trades fell from 135.7 to 131.1 billion.