The National Settlement Depository (NSD), a central securities depository, has published a summary of its second quarter 2018 results today. The firm, which provides depository, settlement and other related services to financial market players, saw an increase in the value of securities under custody and the number of trades registered with its repository.
Looking first as its Central Securities Depository (CSD) services, in the second quarter of this year securities under custody increased by 20 per cent year-on-year from RUB 35.5 trillion ($525.6 billion) to reach RUB 42.4 trillion. The number of foreign securities issues serviced by settlement depository also jumped by 63 per cent year-on-year to hit 10,900.
NSD Repository Services
For the NSD's repository services, during the second quarter, the number of trade’s registered exceeded 3 million. This is compared to 2.74 million in the second quarter of 2017. However, despite an uptick in trades, the value of the transactions was 16 per cent down from the same time period last year, coming at RUB 100.8 trillion.
On its repository, the top three instruments for registered trades were over-the-counter (OTC) repos, Forex forwards and forex Swaps . OTC repos increased by around 7 per cent to reach 2.75 million. Forex swaps more than doubled, increasing by 54 per cent to hit 244,395 in Q2 2018. Forex swaps, on the other hand, actually declined by 25,324 transactions or 73 per cent year-on-year.
In terms of the volume of reported transactions, the same three instruments still dominated the NSD’s repository services. OTC repos came in at RUB 15.1 trillion, a decline of 51 per cent from the same time period in 2017, which experienced a volume of RUB 22.8 trillion.
Forex forwards, on the other hand, increased notably by 42 per cent at RUB 15.6 trillion. This is up from 2017’s volume of RUB 9.1 trillion. Forex swaps were yet again down year-on-year, falling by 28 per cent to RUB 62.9 million from RUB 80.3 million.
