Finadium research clients are invited to join our December 8, 2020 webinar, Climate Risk Accounting – Rationales, Methodologies and What to Expect. Continue reading
Securities Finance Monitor recently spoke with Bertrand Bordais, Global Head of MM Government Bond Repo of the Global Securities Financing team at Natixis. Bertrand shared his views on the European…
The European Central Bank’s (ECB) recent decision to provide a Euro repo facility to non-Euro area central banks through June 2021 was an interesting one, suggesting that like the dollar,…
It can be hard to track the rationale behind government repo market pricing around the world, especially in the face of massive central bank intervention. In a new development, one…
While the European Central Bank’s (ECB) adjustments to acceptable collateral and other tweaks have been useful, what really needs to happen is a significant and competitive move by the EU…
Strong arguments have emerged for why the Euro will not survive the COVID-19 crisis and if it does, why economic and fiscal policy in Europe would be changed for a…
The European Central Bank last week released a series of policy measures to combat economic and stock market declines as a result of the coronavirus. These were all good moves,…
The Fed may be looking at the end of its already broadened toolkit for boosting growth. The ECB is considering all of its policy options while expressing frustration with politicians.…
Volumes in €STR, the European Central Bank reference rate launched in October 2019, have been variable since the launch. Although the initial expectation was that €STR would see 36,000 transactions…
Although the European Central Bank (ECB) appears comfortable in their continuation of negative interest rates, a chorus is rising that this policy is causing long-term damage to the region’s banks.…
Central banks are now forced to take stablecoins, or Central Bank Digital Currencies, seriously. The impetus for this is Facebook’s Libra project, but other initiatives are taking on lives of…
The European Central Bank (ECB) has released new research showing that the euro has gained momentum as a global reserve currency while the US dollar has shrunk. Issuers of reserve…
The ECB recently took the next step in their Eurosystem Single Market Infrastructure Gateway (ESMIG) project, which itself progresses the aims of the Eurosystem Collateral Management System (ECMS). We look…
The European Central Bank released their Financial Stability Report last week, including a feature on counterparty risk in synthetic and physical ETFs. We find some valid points in the analysis…
The ECB’s Benoit Cœuré recently spoke about ESTER, the ECB’s new overnight rate. Benchmark reform is all the rage, and Europe, while initially setting itself some tough deadlines, is now…
A new paper from the European Central Bank looks at the transmission of monetary policy and the concept of fragmentation, which means that monetary policy goals are not getting through…
We understand the impulse: if a CCP’s potential failure could cause severe damage to a region’s economy and monetary policy operations, then that region’s financial supervisors should want to have…
For all the times central bankers have said that they don’t plan to launch digital currencies any time soon, their staffs sure are paying a lot of attention to the…
As US deregulation moves into gear, international regulators are voicing their deep concern with the breakdown of the attempted finalization of Basel III. Meanwhile, the US Congress pushes ahead while…
The Bundesbank’s Dr. Andreas Dombret, responsible for banking, financial supervision and risk control, is presenting a vision of Europe’s financial future that should be heeded. We track some of his…
European regulation of Securities Financing Transactions (SFTs) is having its desired effect, which is a near gold standard of risk management. Unfortunately, it’s at the cost of market vibrancy. A…
US and European repo markets got a bit tetchy last week as the year closed but not as bad as 2016. We review the data and offer some observations. Continue…
It’s been a brisk week for interesting regulatory announcements and discussions. This edition of regulatory roundup highlights key points for collateralized trading, including thinking about the direction of the Federal…
There’s some logic to the legal case, and a clear unconstitutionality, that the Central Bank of Slovenia, Banka Slovenije, should be liable to shareholders of banks that it took over…
In the strongest words that we’ve seen used by a leading regulator in a long time, CFTC Chairman J. Christopher Giancarlo today roundly criticized EU plans to regulate non-EU financial…
The headlines look good: based on the ICMA ERCC’s June 2017 data collection, the European repo market grew 6.4% since December 2016 and 12.4% since June 2016 based on a…
ICMA’s Andy Hill was quoted by Global Investor as being in support of a Reverse Repo Facility (RRP) in Europe: “To the extent that regulation prevents banks from doing what…
Late in 2015, UBS announced it was working on a blockchain-based digital currency for capital markets, called the utility settlement coin (USC). The USC would be used to facilitate settlement…
Central bank tapering season is on the horizon: this means opportunities for price volatility, spread movements between products, and exchange rate fluctuations. It also means a potentially new set of…
Central banks have shown two models for interacting with counterparties. In the Federal Reserve’s primary dealer system, there are a limited number of participants. On the other hand, the European…
The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) released their 87th annual report on June 25th including an important section on risks in the US dollar funding market. The section outlines concerns…
In a speech this week, a senior ECB official called for completion of bank regulations, citing both Basel III and European rules in process. This was a good speech and…
The ECB’s Vice President Vítor Constâncio made a lucid, coherent and altogether applaudable speech on the critical need to get non-performing loans (NPLs) off of European bank balance sheets. This…
We were pleased to see two points of sanity emerge from Europe this week. Both had the themes of scaling back regulatory overreach and seeking to strike a realistic balance between a…
Rising bad debt at European banks – particularly those in Portugal, Spain and Italy – has taken a prominent position in the spotlight in the wake of the Brexit vote. While…
On January 13th, the European Central Bank (ECB) released its summary of their December 2-3rd debate over stimulus and rate direction. There remain calls for stronger and increasing stimulus by…
Now that the US Fed has uncorked the bottle with their first rate hike in several years, central banks around the world are starting to react in interesting ways. As…
The value of the Leverage Ratio has been proclaimed as a non-risk based measure that is supposed to capture all on and off-balance sheet liabilities of a bank. Together with…
In 2008, a global de-regulation super trend came to a grinding halt and gave rise to an era of financial repression. However, while financial innovation and financial repression are global…
We are pleased to announce the launch of Securities Finance Monitor Magazine. Hard copies were distributed at ISLA and to subscribers who completed their registration information. Download your free copy…
Finadium and Clearstream have produced a series of podcasts on T2S, collateral and liquidity. Need to get smart about today’s launch of T2S and what it means for your collateral…
We’ve just returned from three European road shows with Clearstream discussing T2S, collateral and liquidity. These were extremely interesting – our synopsis and lessons learned are below. The meeting participants…
The European Central Bank’s recent Quantitative Easing (QE) program is putting a squeeze on European repo markets. QE takes securities out of the market. T2S will help repo by aggregating…
T2S opens many doors in the world of collateral and liquidity. At its simplest, financial intermediaries will soon be able to open up one account for settlement purposes and one…
Despite a common currency, Eurozone securities do not have a single settlement system. That will soon be changing. TARGET2-Securities (T2S), the European Central Bank’s (ECB) settlement initiative, tackles the fragmented…
Collateral and liquidity management under TARGET2-Securities (T2S) is an emerging work stream that requires attention from market participants. Settlement mechanisms under T2S are now generally understood, including how settlement will…
The European repo market is seeing the emergence of an LCR-compliant trading basket that takes the work out of conducting credit analysis on individual bonds, especially in light of national…
You’ve seen the headlines by now: the European Central Bank’s stress tests showed 25 banks out of 130 with insufficient capital, and 12 of those have already raised further assets. The…