Press

Eurex Repo and Clearstream’s Global Securities Financing services reported a successful first half of 2008. Euro GC Pooling in particular recorded extensive growth due to its link with Clearstream’s international liquidity pools. This integrated offer from Deutsche Börse Group simplifies and bundles collateralized liquidity management of securities financing in Europe, which is in considerable demand particularly with difficult and rapidly changing market conditions.

Eurex Repo
The growth driver at Eurex Repo was the secured money market segment Euro GC Pooling. Since expanding to include European collateral in September 2007, the average volume outstanding has drastically increased. In a monthly comparison, June 2008 was most successful with €39.9 billion – an increase of 260 percent year-on-year. Overall the average outstanding volume in Q2 was €37.3 billion, which equates to an increase of 230 percent year-on-year.

Electronic repo markets EUR Repo (which include Euro GC Pooling) and CHF Repo attracted considerable volume overall. Growth in terms of the average outstanding volume was 41 percent in Q2, reaching the record level of €129.6 billion, of which €71 billion was attributable to the EUR repo market and €58.6 billion (CHF 90.8 billion) to the CHF repo market. Record volumes were also broken for daily outstanding volume in the first half of the year: €81.2 billion in the EUR repo market (on 24 June 2008), CHF 111.1 billion in the CHF repo market (on 30 June 2008), and €46.2 billion at Euro GC Pooling (on 24 February 2008).

Marcel Naas, Managing Director of Eurex Repo GmbH, said about the first half of the year, “The current development confirms our unique combination of secured money market trading with the efficiency of Eurex Clearing AG’s central counterparty and the integrated management of collateral pools by Clearstream Banking. Euro GC Pooling enables cross-border management of liquidity with a wide range of ECB-eligible collateral – an offer that has gained considerable market acceptance particularly in difficult market phases.”

In addition to volume growth, the client base also expanded. 44 participants are linked to the EUR repo market at present, and 139 to the CHF repo market. Euro GC Pooling increased the number of its participants by a fifth from the beginning of the year, to 25.

As at 3 September 2007, Eurex Repo expanded Euro GC Pooling’s range of available security holdings to include Eurobonds and a variety of European bonds in addition to the existing range of German bonds. All collateral in the basket can also be used as collateral for refinancing within the framework of ECB open market transactions.

The connection between Clearstream Banking Frankfurt (CBF) and Clearstream Banking Luxembourg (CBL) made this expansion possible. This means that potentially all Clearstream clients have access to more than 8,000 securities as collateral in Euro GC Pooling.

Clearstream GSF
Global Securities Financing services, which comprise triparty repo, securities lending and collateral management, also recorded above-average growth in the first six months of 2008. The monthly average outstandings reached € 404.4 billion in June, a strong growth of 23 percent over June 2007 (€327.5 billion). In May 2008, monthly average outstandings peaked at a record high of €415 billion.

Stefan Lepp, Executive Board member at Clearstream Banking Frankfurt and Head of Global Securities Financing commented, “The first half of the year demonstrates that our products and services have been well received by the market. Deutsche Börse’s integrated model of trading, clearing, settlement/custody and collateral management makes it the hub for the centralized liquidity needed by institutions for smooth market processes.”