Five more banks have signed up to use EuroCCP, a pan-European clearing and settlement facility that provides post-trade services to Turquoise, the multilateral trading facility (MTF) that formally launched today.
Landsbanki Securities (UK), MF Global UK, Numis Securities, Parel and Pershing Securities have signed to use EuroCCP, bringing the total number of clearing participants using the facility to 20.
EuroCCP also announced that transaction volumes surpassed the discount threshold of 400,000 transactions on 16 September. If the daily average volume exceeds 400,000 for a calendar month, the platform will cut its fees to 5.25 euro cents per transaction from the current level of 6 euro cents – although EuroCCP does not expect the daily average to exceed the threshold in September. The next discount threshold is 800,000 transactions, which would cut fees to 2.50 euro cents a transaction.
“We expect to continue to see strong, steady volume growth as more European firms look for a competitive edge in seeking less costly venues to trade, clear and settle,” said Diana Chan, chief executive officer of EuroCCP, in a statement. “Having successfully reached this milestone, EuroCCP will continue to focus on increasing our member base, the securities we process and the markets we can settle at so that we can provide the fullest clearing and settlement capabilities to trading platforms and to our participants.”
While EuroCCP does not serve Turquoise exclusively – it will also be one of the clearing providers for NYSE Euronext’s SmartPool non-displayed liquidity platformin October – its launch has mirrored that of the MTF. EuroCCP
began initial operations on 15 August in Germany and the UK, ramping up to full clearing of Turquoise stocks on 29 August.
Between 29 August and 16 September, EuroCCP cleared and settled more than 1.6 million sides of trades, and netted those transactions down by roughly 98% to 32,004 total settlement obligations.