These include the announced merger of Deutsche Börse and NYSE, the sale of SIX Group’s Eurex-stake to Deutsche Börse and a move of trading volumes away from “national” quasimonopolies towards multilateral trading venues such as multilateral trading facilities (MTF). Some estimates indicate that as much as 25% of equity trading volumes are now handled by these new players. Because of such developments, in the Swiss Blue-Chip segment, SIX Swiss Exchange’s average market share declined from over 80% in 2009 to around 70% in 11 2010. Post-trade infrastructure is also under pressure to evolve. Notably, the Financial Stability Board recommends a wider adoption of Central Counterparties (CCPs) in the over-thecounter (OTC) derivatives markets. By mitigating counterparty risk, increasing transparency and limiting the likelihood of contagion in these complex markets, CCPs reduce systemic risk. Regulators in both the European Union and the United States are thus promoting increased use of CCPs. A second example, upon which I would like to dwell, is the European Central Bank’s (ECB) “TARGET2-Securities (T2S)” project, which has attracted much attention in the industry. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the initiative, it aims to establish a single venue where securities may be settled against the euro and possibly against other currencies, partially replacing the existing national settlement infrastructures.
Most notably, as the SVC integrates several processes, it is fast, efficient and safe. In equity trading, “straight-through processing” has technically reduced “time to settlement” to as little as four seconds, though in market practice the settlement cycle for equities is three days. Domestically, the system is inexpensive and the price of trading has decreased significantly in recent years. “Straight-through processing” has also been applied to and strengthened the Swiss repo market, where not a single “fail”, i.e. a settlement that is one or more days late, has occurred in the interbank repo transactions since May 2009. In terms of automation, the integrated Swiss approach compares favourably to other systems of its kind. Despite the omnipresence of electronic systems worldwide, only one third of all repo transactions in Europe are in fact handled by automatic trading systems such as BrokerTec, Eurex Repo or MTS. In several national markets, most steps are still performed manually.8 As the Swiss value chain was built in the mid-1990s, it was a frontrunner in the move towards straight-through processing. It is still a “state-of-the-art” set-up, but this is no time to be complacent in view of the ever-increasing strengths of competing systems. Given its high level of performance, it is interesting to observe that the Swiss value chain is the result of a typically Swiss form of collaboration, known as “Gemeinschaftswerk”. The principle of “Gemeinschaftswerk” has been vital in shaping and maintaining Switzerland’s FMI.