- Assets under custody stable at EUR 12.3 trillion
- 20 percent increase in investment fund transactions compared to October 2013
- Philippe Seyll: "Expansion is a step towards becoming a one-stop shop for funds for our customers"
Clearstream: Business stream 1: Custody
In October 2014, the overall value of assets under custody held on behalf of customers registered an increase of 4 percent to EUR 12.3 trillion (compared to EUR 11.8 trillion in October 2013).
Securities held under custody in Clearstream’s international business as international central securities depository (ICSD) increased by 6 percent from EUR 6.2 trillion in October 2013 to EUR 6.6 trillion in October 2014.
Securities held under custody in the German central securities depository (CSD) increased by 2 percent from EUR 5.6 trillion in October 2013 to EUR 5.7 trillion in October 2014.
For the period year-to-date October 2014, the combined value of assets under custody in the German domestic CSD and global ICSD business increased by 5 percent compared to the same period last year (YTD October 2014: EUR 12.2 trillion; YTD October 2013: EUR 11.6 trillion).
Business stream 2: Settlement
In October 2014, 4.0 million international (ICSD) settlement transactions were processed, a 9 percent increase over October 2013 (3.7 million). Of all international transactions, 84 percent were OTC transactions and 16 percent were registered as stock exchange transactions.
On the German domestic market, CSD settlement transactions in October 2014 reached 8.1 million, 18 percent more than in October 2014 (6.8 million). Of these transactions, 63 percent were stock exchange transactions and 37 percent OTC transactions.
For the period year-to-date October 2014, the number of settlement transactions (OTC and stock exchange combined) processed for the German domestic CSD and global ICSD business combined increased by 4 percent compared to the same period last year (YTD October 2014: 105.3 million; YTD October 2013: 101.4 million). The Investment Funds Services business contributed to this growth in the ICSD business as its corresponding transactions registered a 12 percent increase.
Business stream 3: Global Securities Financing
For Global Securities Financing (GSF) services, the monthly average outstanding in October 2014 reached EUR 636.7 billion. The combined services, which include triparty repo, securities lending and collateral management, collectively experienced an increase of 10 percent over October 2013 (EUR 578.7 billion).
The GSF monthly average outstanding has grown by 6 percent from the period year-to-date October 2013 (EUR 572.1 billion) to the period year-to-date October 2014 (EUR 605.2 billion).
Business stream 4: Investment Fund Services
Investment Fund Services (IFS) processed 0.8 million transactions in October 2014, a 20 percent increase over October 2013 (0.7 million).
IFS transactions have grown by 12 percent from 6.5 million processed in the period year-to-date October 2013 to 7.3 million in the period year-to-date October 2014.
As of 3 October 2014 Clearstream owns CGSS Ltd in Cork, Ireland, providing hedge fund trade execution and fund custody processing services for financial institutions. Until Citco Bank’s financial institution customers have fully migrated to Clearstream (planned for Q1/2015), the respective asset volumes are still serviced on behalf of Citco Bank and will neither be fully included in Clearstream’s assets under custody nor be included in the number of investment fund transactions.
Commentary:
Philippe Seyll, Member of the Executive Board and Head of Investment Funds Services at Clearstream, commented: "On 3 October we closed the transaction with Citco and since then the hedge fund processing infrastructure for financial institutions and 300 well-qualified staff in this domain are part of Clearstream. Clearstream is now in a position to offer order execution and fund custody to the entire range of funds our customers would want to trade in such as: mutual funds, exchange-traded funds and hedge funds. This expansion is a step towards becoming a one-stop shop for funds for our customers.
We experienced a great month in Investment Fund Services with a 20 percent increase in processed transactions, and see the same growth rates across Clearstream where assets under custody remain at a record level of 12.3 trillion EUR, settlement transactions both in the German domestic and the international market peak with growth rates of 18 and 9 percent respectively, and collateral outstanding is up 6 percent. This growth trend is very encouraging since market participants are currently chosing the right partner for TARGET2-Securities."