Althought in a turbulent year but euroclear have a solid performance

Brussels, 23 February 2009 – The 2008 business results for the Euroclear group of national and international central securities depositories (CSDs) were resilient. Against equity market capitalisation decreases of more than 45% in Belgium, France, Ireland, the Netherlands and the UK in 2008, the Euroclear group settled 157 million transactions worth approximately EUR 560 trillion in 2008, on par with 2007.

Euroclear also made good progress on delivering its strategic objectives, launching its platform to process all domestic and cross-border transactions involving Belgian, Dutch and French securities in January 2009, finalising in October 2008 the acquisition of NCSD, covering the CSDs of Finland and Sweden, and announcing an agreement to purchase Xtrakter in early 2009.
Pierre Francotte, Chief Executive Officer of Euroclear SA/NV, said: “Euroclear proved very resilient in 2008, helping to bring safety and stability to the capital markets, precisely what is expected of a market infrastructure, particularly during periods of tremendous volatility. We have been leveraging our risk management expertise to offer our clients a safe haven for their securities business, now and in the difficult months ahead. Notwithstanding the impact of the financial crisis on securities values and the levels of client trading and settlement activity generally, Euroclear’s solid 2008 operational performance demonstrates our clients’ search for low risk and low cost posttrade solutions. Our focus in the coming months will be to further reduce their costs and risks."

Operating highlights

The entity-specific and combined results of the Euroclear group (including November and December 2008 figures for turnover and transactions settled, and the year-end 2008 value of securities held for Euroclear Finland and Euroclear Sweden, which became part of the group on 31 October 2008) are:

• Turnover, or the value of securities transactions settled, was largely stable at EUR 559.8 trillion compared to EUR 561.8 trillion in 2007.

• The number of netted transactions settled in the Euroclear group increased slightly to 157.3 million in 2008 compared with 155.6 million in 2007.

• The value of securities held for Euroclear clients at the end of 2008 was EUR 18.1 trillion, a 6% decrease from the EUR 19.2 trillion recorded at year-end 2007, driven mostly by lower equity and fund asset values in some of the CSD markets of the Euroclear group.

• The combined daily value of collateral provision outstanding in Euroclear Bank and Euroclear UK & Ireland experienced a 29% drop in 2008 to EUR 424.3 billion compared with EUR 595.0 billion at the end of 2007, largely due to deleveraging in the industry.
by: https://www.euroclear.com/