Weak trading may force ECB to increase charges

The European Central Bank said it may raise its fees for users of the currency bloc’s planned settlement system for stocks and bond trades owing to weak trading on financial markets during the eurozone debt crisis.
By The Newsroom
Published 4th Dec 2012, 08:57 BST

The new Target2Securities (T2S) platform is due to go live in 2015 and aimed initially to cut trading costs for investors to about 15 euro cents per transaction.

But weak trading volumes might force the ECB to demand higher fees. Settling trades, the final step in any deal where ownership of a bond or share is transferred to the buyer, relies on a multi-trillion euro system to swap legal title to a security in return for payment.

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Jean-Michel Godeffroy, chairman of the ECB’s T2S Board, said in a statement that volumes reported by the 23 settlement houses that signed up to platform were around 18 per cent lower than expected in 2010 due to the crisis.