Foreign investment into Latin America is poised to accelerate, but market structure issues must be solved to unlock flows. A new report from Nasdaq explores the opportunities (and expectations) for improving post-trade processes and standards.
The top survey takeaway is that 84% of respondents want to grow their Latin American exposures – but59% experience market inefficiencies that block or limit their investments. The prime culprit? Regional variance. From settlements to securities lending, collateral management and proxy voting, post-trade inefficiency and fragmentation is holding back investment.
What’s needed is regional consolidation or harmonization that lifts these roadblocks and lays the groundwork for the efficient operating model of tomorrow, according to the report.
Other insights:
- 70% of respondents identified the high cost of regional variance in processes and platforms as a significant blocker. This variance leads to high operational costs and risks, particularly for institutional investors who need to maintain different operating models for each market.
- 61% of respondents experience high levels of failed lending/recalls and 67% face settlement fails due to low straight-through processing (STP) rates. The lack of automation in STP is a critical issue, particularly for wealth investors, who report STP rates below 55% across all Latin American markets.
- Managing the complexity of Latin American markets requires significant resources, equating to around 3x full-time headcounts for wealth investors and even more for institutional investors. This complexity results in high fixed costs and limits economies of scale, making it difficult for smaller firms to operate efficiently.
- Respondents expect significant savings from harmonizing processes and messaging standards across markets, with potential P&L improvements of up to 21% in areas like collateral movements and corporate actions. There is a clear call for standardization and regionalization to reduce costs and improve efficiency.