European Multilateral Clearing Facility (EMCF), a pan-European central counterparty (CCP), has said it will reimburse its clients some of the settlement and settlement management fees it charged in 2009 as a result of record volumes cleared over the last year.
According to EMCF, high clearing volumes during 2009 meant it paid lower settlement fees to central securities depositories and that the total cost of settlement funding could be divided over more settlements than the CCP initially expected. As a result, EMCF will pay back as much as €150,000 to some clients.
Additionally, EMCF has said it will look to lower its settlement fees in 2010 where appropriate, based on the savings accrued in 2009.
“We are delighted to be able to reward and give back to our clients. This way they too can benefit from the low-cost yet superior systems we have in place to service the rapidly growing market,” said Jan Booij, CEO of EMCF, in a statement. “It’s a clear example of the simplicity and transparency we always advocate.”
During Q4 2009, the CCP’s clearing volumes reached 2.5 million trade sides per day out of a European total of 7.1 million trades per day on average in Q4 2009, according to figures from trade body the Federation of European Securities Exchanges. EMCF also reported that it surpassed 5 million daily trade sides cleared in March 2010.
EMCF currently clears for multilateral trading facilities BATS Europe, Burgundy, Chi-X Europe, Nasdaq OMX Europe and Quote MTF, as well as Nasdaq OMX’s domestic Nordic exchanges in Finland, Stockholm and Copenhagen.