For years, the post-trade industry has focused on gradual improvements driven by changes in regulation and incremental technology upgrades.
What we consistently hear from clients is very clear: while the past developments have delivered benefits, they have not addressed the profound underlying issue that Europe’s post-trade landscape remains highly fragmented.
Recent geopolitical developments have acted as a wake-up call for Europe, reinforcing the need to strengthen the competitiveness and resilience of its capital markets.
Today, market participants must connect to multiple local environments, each with its own rules, processes, standards and fee models. This leads to duplicated efforts, increased risk and limited price transparency.
At the same time, the industry is being asked to move assets faster. The transition to T+1, rising automation requirements, real-time expectations and the emergence of digital assets are all pushing firms to modernise faster. Yet, many market structures across Europe were not designed for this level of speed or connectivity.
Importantly, this acceleration also requires significant investment decisions from clients themselves. Firms need to prioritise transformation programmes alongside other regulatory and commercial demands, meaning post-trade has become far more strategic than it was perceived in the past.
Against this backdrop, clients’ expectations are becoming much clearer: they demand greater openness and optionality, without being locked into rigid or closed models, or forced to choose between integration and flexibility. They want seamless cross-border access, consistent processes, and operating models that enable growth rather than constrain it.
Investors expect to deploy capital across Europe without friction. Issuers want to go beyond their local reach and go broader, to expand to a pan-European investor base. Intermediaries no longer want to navigate a patchwork of local and ageing infrastructures.
As a result, the conversation is shifting from improving processes to fundamentally rethinking post-trade infrastructure. And there is a clear sense of urgency to act now.
This is where Euronext is taking a clear leadership role. We are not just adapting to this change; we are actively helping shape it.
How is Euronext Securities helping clients navigate these challenges?
Euronext Securities’ ambition is clear: to make it significantly easier for our clients to operate across European markets through more efficient processes and simplified operations.
One of our key strategic initiatives, Convergence, is central to this ambition. It is bringing together the activities of our five central securities depositories onto a single platform while aligning our local operational processes across markets. This innovative programme is already delivering tangible progress, with client testing underway and key components, such as our common corporate action platform, going live by year-end. We are also continuing to expand the scope, with Euronext Securities Athens now fully integrated into the Convergence roadmap, reinforcing our ambition to build a truly pan-European platform.
In parallel, our European (CSD) offering is moving from design to implementation. Its objective is to create a more connected European post-trade environment for issuance, settlement and custody, effectively providing clients with a more integrated gateway into multiple European markets that goes beyond our current network of CSDs. We have entered the active testing phase with clients, validating connectivity, processes and operating models ahead of the planned launch in late September this year. Our European model is already gaining strong support from leading custodians, reflecting growing confidence in the model, and we are onboarding the first issuers, with further significant migration waves in the coming months.
Regarding our ancillary services, we continue to expand our data offering in collaboration with Euronext Data Solutions as well as our tax services following the acquisition of Acupay in 2024, helping clients manage their activities more effectively in an increasingly complex environment.
We are also strengthening collaboration across the Euronext value chain, particularly in fixed income markets, where fragmentation extends beyond execution. Indeed, what increasingly matters for market participants is the efficiency of the full lifecycle, from trading and settlement through to collateral mobilisation and financing. As a network of five key central securities depositories at the heart of the Euronext ecosystem, we are uniquely positioned to help connect these activities more effectively across markets. This translates into greater operational efficiency, stronger collateral optimisation and better access to liquidity, all of which are becoming increasingly important differentiators in today’s fixed income environment.
Finally, it is important to highlight that we are following very closely the discussions around the European Market Infrastructure Package. Euronext has always taken a practical and business-oriented approach and the current momentum around this topic is finally creating the conditions for real implementation and genuine industry transformation. Developments around digital assets and distributed ledger technology (DLT)-based models are also becoming much more tangible from a regulatory perspective and is now one of our key focus areas with our clients.
What is the Euronext difference and how do your systems set you apart?
Euronext is one of the few truly pan-European companies, operating through a federal model that allows alignment across several countries. Today, our unique market infrastructure group is leading the way by investing heavily in its own scalable, future-proof technology with a genuine pan-European ambition.
When it comes to our central securities depository (CSD) activity, our objective is straightforward: to set a new benchmark for integration and innovation across Europe and help move the market from fragmented operating models towards a more connected ecosystem, where clients can operate efficiently without sacrificing flexibility.
Clients benefit from an integrated end-to-end ecosystem – spanning trading, clearing, settlement and custody – while retaining the ability to select the specific services that best suit their needs. This “open integration” model represents a clear shift from traditional approaches.
So, what truly differentiates our approach is that we are introducing something that has historically been limited in post-trade: genuine choice within an integrated European framework. While delivering along the road a stronger investor CSD model, our ultimate goal is to deliver a truly fully-fledged European issuer CSD model,
Finally, and most importantly, partnering with our clients is central to our strategic initiatives. We work closely with clients and the broader market to ensure that what we build is not only technically robust, but also relevant, practical and future proof.
We have been very pleased to see that our vision is strongly resonating across the market, reflecting a clear appetite for a different approach and a growing recognition that the industry cannot continue operating in the same way it has for decades.
Now it is time to act on it, and we determined to do so with the support of our clients.
What is one misconception about European post-trade that you would challenge today?
One of the biggest misconceptions about post-trade is that it is a boring industry.
In reality, nothing could be further from the truth.
Having spent nearly 20 years in “front-office” roles before joining Euronext across funds management, investment bank trading desks and custodian execution teams, I have seen first-hand how dynamic, intellectually stimulating and essential post-trade can either enable or constrain business opportunities.
I find it profoundly motivating to navigate an industry where there is so much to understand and to do, especially now that there is momentum to invest in it and finally unlock the potential for growth.
Behind the scenes, operations teams are made up of highly skilled and committed professionals who are essential to the functioning of markets. It is both inspiring and motivating to work alongside them, learn from them every day and contribute to moving the needle of progress in a concrete way.