Euroclear Bank will reduce safekeeping and transaction-settlement fees by EUR 9 million, or an average of 17%, for debt securities from six European markets.
Effective 1 October 2006, the latest round of fee reductions will apply to safekeeping fees for domestic debt securities from Austria, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain, and cross-border settlement fees for Belgian and French securities transactions. Euroclear Bank clients active in these markets are expected to save as much as 25% due to the new tariff and restructured volume-discount thresholds.
Martine Dinne, Chief Executive Officer of Euroclear Bank, commented:
"Frequent tariff reductions have become a Euroclear hallmark. Approximately EUR 30 million in tariff reductions have already been passed on to clients in 2006, in addition to the EUR 45 million rebated in January for business activity in 2005. We remain as committed to providing competitive day-today services and prices as in delivering longer-term client benefits through our platform consolidation and market-practice harmonisation initiatives."
Euroclear is the world’s largest provider of domestic and cross-border settlement and related services for bond, equity and fund transactions. Market owned and market governed, the Euroclear group includes Euroclear Bank, based in Brussels, as well as Euroclear Belgium, Euroclear France, Euroclear Nederland and CRESTCo, the central securities depositories of Belgium, France, the Netherlands, and the UK and Ireland, respectively. The total value of securities transactions settled by Euroclear is in excess of EUR 350 trillion per annum, while assets held for clients are valued at more than EUR 15 trillion. Euroclear Bank is rated AA+ by Standard & Poor’s and Fitch Ratings.