In the first of our introductions to the distinguished nominees for Leaders in Trading 2022, we bring you the shortlist for one of the most highly coveted awards of the industry: the category of Outstanding Exchange Group. Cboe Global Markets, Euronext, London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) and SIX Swiss Exchange are all in the running, so read on for more information on their activities over the past year.
Cboe Global Markets
Cboe Global Markets needs no introduction. It’s a market giant covering equities, derivatives, digital assets and FX, across North America, Europe and Asia Pacific.
It’s the activities of Cboe Europe that drove the nomination this year, however, and the past 12 months have been on many levels a landmark period for the exchange. In equities, it became Europe’s largest stock exchange by market share in April 2022 for the first time since January 2019, and has been the largest stock exchange by market share every month since June 2022, with an overall European equities market share of 24.9% in September 2022 – its highest share since January 2016.
The group also successfully launched Cboe Europe Derivatives (CEDX) in September 2021, an innovative, pan-European equity derivatives exchange. CEDX marked Cboe Europe’s first foray beyond cash equities and into derivatives and the initiative continues to build momentum, with over 13,000 contracts traded since launch and Open Interest peaking at over 1,600 in September.
EuroCCP, Cboe’s wholly owned pan-European clearing house, provides clearing services for CEDX. Beyond its diversification into equity derivatives clearing, EuroCCP has also demonstrated solid performance in cash equities, where it remains the most-connected CCP in Europe, offering equities clearing services to 47 trading venues. It has seen strong gains in preferred clearing, with over 17% of total cash equity volumes on Euronext’s exchanges in Amsterdam, Brussels, Lisbon and Paris cleared via EuroCCP through this model as of 30 September, up from 2% at the start of the year.
Cboe Europe also deserves a mention for its thought-leadership role, supporting and advocating (often vocally) within the industry on a wide range of issues. It recently collaborated with trade associations on a statement of principles for establishing an EU equity consolidated tape, for example, an issue on which its supportive position is well-known.
Other key developments throughout the year include the appointment of Nick Dutton, Cboe Europe’s Chief Regulatory Officer, to the FCA’s Secondary Markets Advisory Committee and the group’s membership of the Sustainable Trading initiative in May.
Euronext
The biggest pan-European exchange, connecting seven markets across the continent, Euronext had a strong year over 2021-22 with surging trading volumes and a series of successful acquisitions.
The group saw its trading revenue swell to €465.3 million in 2021, driven by its completed acquisition of Borsa Italiana from the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) in April. In its fourth quarter and full year results, the exchange operator confirmed a 27% growth of trading revenues, alongside yield management in cash trading offsetting lower volumes compared with 2020. Fixed income trading revenue also increased to €65.8 million driven by a 45% growth year-on-year in its MTS cash trading activities.
The strong performance has continued – trading revenues more than doubled in the first quarter, despite the adverse geopolitical conditions, while the second quarter saw trading revenues jump a further 15% with robust performance across all asset classes.
FX volumes have also been surging – up 30% in September alone, one of the busiest months ever for the exchange, while on a quarterly scale, the average FX trading volume in Q3 2022 was comfortably above the $21.7 billion mark, up 24% from $17.5 billion a year earlier.
In June this year, Euronext also entered into an agreement with Nexi for the acquisition of the former’s technology businesses, which currently powers Euronext’s fixed-income trading platform MTS and Euronext Securities Milan, in a further move to leverage its integrated value chain.
London Stock Exchange Group
At over 300 years old one of our most venerable of shortlisted candidates, LSEG has gone from strength to strength this year. The exchange group delivered a strong first half performance with continued revenue growth across businesses. Total income grew by £717 million to £3.7 billion, while its Data & Analytics business posted revenues up £482 million to £2.4 billion. Capital markets and post-trade have also been positive growth drivers for the group, with an especially strong performance in PTC derivatives on the post-trade side, as it supports clients seeking to manage risk given the ongoing uncertain rate environment.
On the investment side, it’s been an exceptionally busy year for LSEG, which completed three acquisitions in 2022. Global Data Consortium Inc (GDC) globalised its digital identity and fraud prevention offering in the Customer & Third-Party Risk business; while the acquisition of MayStreet enhanced its Enterprise Data Solutions business, expanding LSEG’s capabilities across the latency spectrum through a global low latency network of over 300 cross asset, exchange and trading venue feeds. Finally, TORA came on board to provide multi-asset order and execution management capabilities, a major addition.
The exchange has proven to be a valuable source of capital through the unprecedented market volatility of 2022, while the group has also been active in supporting wider regulatory reform. London Stock Exchange plc earlier this year launched of a new UK Capital Markets Industry Taskforce (CMIT), comprising CEOs, chairs and industry leaders representing private and publicly listed companies, asset owners and managers and the advisory services that support their access to capital and investments, chaired by CEO Julia Hoggett.
Finally, the Group has actively supported and invested in new technologies and FinTechs, including an investment into BondCliq to improve access to fixed income data, working with FinTech Simudyne to develop a next generation intelligence-based simulation environment for market participants, and of course the partnership between LSEG’s Turquoise and bookbuilding platform Appital.
SIX Swiss Exchange
Finally, SIX Swiss Exchange is another worthy contender on the list. The group has had a busy year with numerous new products and services launched since 2021: including the introduction of block conditional orders for SwissAtMid (its non-displayed pool), allowing participants to manage fragmentation and execute large blocks more efficiently.
The group also launched SIX Digital Exchange (SDX) with a tokenised bond, the world’s first bond with a purely digital tranche ever issued in a fully regulated environment; while in July 2022 SDX launched the first ever tokenization of equity shares in a fully-regulated CSD based on distributed ledger technology (DLT). The group has been making a strong play in the digital assets space – 2021 was a record year for products with crypto currencies as underlyings, with trading turnover CHF8.6 billion, (+673% year-on-year), and the number of transactions growing by 634% year-on-year. It also saw 74 new ETPs listed with crypto currencies as underlying, including seven world premieres, and offers access to 16 crypto currencies – the largest offering on any regulated exchange.
We also saw the launch of Swiss EBBO (improved access to best price and depth of liquidity); the internationalisation of CONNEXOR (including roll-out in Asia-Pacific market); enhanced Quote on Demand (trading service to improve execution quality in ETFs and ETPs).
The group has built out its technology further as well, with the expansion of the SIX Swiss Exchange European Microwave network operated by 12H to include low latency route linking Bergamo to Frankfurt. Integration work also started between SIX Swiss Exchange and BME technology platforms completing the first deliverable of the MDDX market data feed. The integration will add further products such as SpanishAtMid, blocks and is expected to provide an overall more complete, robust trading environment within the EU.
The winner will be announced at the Leaders in Trading 2022 gala awards dinner at The Savoy Hotel on 3 November. For table enquiries, please contact Nathan Anacleto.