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Monitoring prices, costs and volumes of trading and post-trading services

July 16th 2009

Securities trading and post-trading (ie, clearing and settlement and custody and safekeeping) services play an important role in the overall functioning of financial markets. The markets for these services have been subject to significant changes, such as the introduction of MIFID in 2006 and an industry Code of Conduct for infrastructure providers in 2007, the removal of barriers to cross-border trading and post-trading, and the entry of new trading platforms and counterparty clearing houses (CCPs), strengthening competition and choice for investors, fund managers and brokers.

This price monitoring study measures the impact of these changes on the costs of trading and post-trading. It provides the first detailed empirical description of how the European capital markets are operating in terms of market dynamics and customer and supplier behaviour. It enables enable the Commission to monitor how the costs of trading and post-trading to investors will evolve over time.

For this study, a specific dataset was collected from intermediaries (fund managers, brokers and custodians) and infrastructure providers (trading platforms, central CCPs and central securities depositories (CSDs)) operating in the trading and post-trading value chain in Europe. This exercise will be repeated in 2010.

To read further details of the study and for frequently asked questions, please click here.