The securities lending market entered 2023 in a robust position. The industry has successfully responded to regulatory and market challenges over the last decade, including new balance sheet and capital requirements from Basel III, Dodd-Frank, the Capital Requirements Regulation and more. Many agent lenders are increasingly investing in their businesses to improve efficiency, automate manual tasks and deliver transparency for the benefit of their clients, counterparties and regulators.
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Today, securities lending has been rebranded as Securities Finance at many agent lenders, including Northern Trust, reflecting the broader diversity of services that agents can offer to provide holistic solutions to beneficial owners’ needs. Many agents provide a full suite of financing/liquidity products alongside traditional securities lending. There is a move to utilize assets as efficiently as possible whether in securities lending, as collateral for over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives, to lend and/or raise cash or, in some cases, provide additional leverage. The agent lender of today functions as much in a quasi-treasury function to meet the needs of their clients as they do as an intermediary to generate lending income.
The full report is available at https://www.northerntrust.com/content/dam/northerntrust/pws/nt/documents/asset-servicing/transition-evolution-securities-lending-market.pdf