Daily trading on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) went from two million shares a day in the early 1960s to twelve million by the end of the decade. Meanwhile, stock trades continued to be settled by the physical delivery of engraved stock certificates between brokerage firms. As trading volumes soared, the post-trading industry could not keep up with the paper blizzard. By 1968, the NYSE was forced to close every Wednesday for six months to catch up with the paperwork. It then reduced its official operating hours for a further six months to enable its 4 member brokerage firms to keep pace with the trading volumes. Technology subsequently caught up. A second example is “Black Monday” when, on 19 October 1987, stock markets crashed all over the world. That day, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped by over 22%. One factor that increased the severity of this market crash was the difficulty people faced in obtaining reliable information. The record trading volumes on Black Monday – three times the daily average – overwhelmed many systems. As the Brady Report put it: “On the NYSE, for example, trade executions were reported more than an hour late, which … caused confusion among traders. Investors did not know whether limit orders had been executed or whether 5 new limits needed to be set.” In the years since 1987, both trading and post-trade technology have come a long way. Today, trading algorithms buy and sell hundreds of thousands of times in a single second, leading to increased trading volumes.
It has provided all relevant private and public stakeholders with a voice in the process - from the SNB to large banks with an international focus, to smaller and regional institutes. The twelve year history of the Swiss repo market illustrates this principle at work. At the end of the 1990s, commercial banks, financial infrastructure providers and the SNB collaborated  7  It consists of four elements: i) the electronic trading platforms, SIX Swiss Exchange and Eurex (derivatives); (ii) the central counterparty SIX x-clear; (iii) the securities settlement system SECOM; and (iv) the payment systems, Swiss Interbank Clearing (SIC) and euroSIC. Also directly integrated are the central counterparties, London Clearing House (LCH) and Eurex Clearing, as well as the euroSIC payment system. 8  Cf. “International Capital Market Association: European repo market survey.” Number 18, conducted December 2009, published March 2010. p. 10. Cf. also BIS, “CPSS: Strengthening repo clearing and settlement arrangements,” published September 2010., pp. 10–12. BIS central bankers’ speeches  3  closely to develop the repo market. The resulting electronic Eurex Repo trading platform9 standardised repo transactions. Crucially, since 1999 the Eurex Repo trading platform has been linked to the SECOM securities settlement system, which is connected to the SIC realtime gross-settlement payment system. Not only does this make straight-through processing possible, the system also sets itself apart by integrating central bank repos and interbank repos on the same platform.