GFF Podcast

Securities Lending Special: Meet the ISF Global Investor Best-in-Class 2023 Winners

• Clearstream • Season 3 • Episode 5

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In this show, we celebrate our award-winning ASLplus platform. Lifetime Achievement Award winner Alexandre Roques (Head of Sec Lending Trading Desk) and Head of Securities Lending and Borrowing Banu Apers join us for a look at the innovative features and trade ideas that earned this prestigious win from a survey of borrowers around the world. We also look at how Securities Lending markets have changed over the years and consider the major impacts of quantitative tightening over 2023, the maturity of the final tranche of TLTROs in 2024 and our special expertise in handling US Treasury Bonds and access to the Federal Reserve. Plus, we look forward to conditions in 2024, considering the potential impacts of T+1, CSDR and settlement services for ETFs... and more.

Andrew Keith Walker:

Welcome back. Yes, we're very excited. This week it is episode 23. Can you believe it? Episode 23 of the GFF podcast. We're still going strong, looking forwards to the next GFF summit that'll be coming up in Luxembourg in 2024. Can you believe it? It's November already.

Andrew Keith Walker:

Where has the year gone? Have you got your Christmas shopping underway? If you're a market participant, have you finalized your balance sheets? Yes, we are coming towards year and we are delighted to say we've got a great show for you lined up, all about securities lending, and we will go back a couple of years, back to the very beginning, to episode one and episode two, with two very special guests, award winners, who are coming back to join us for this show. But before we do the big reveal, I'd like to reveal my co-host, of course, the man without whom there could be no GFF show, my long suffering co-host, I should add, victim of a great many jokes, the man who is quite literally taking over the Santa Claus this year. It is Mr Christian Ross, the vice president for business development at collateral lending and liquidity solutions, clear Stream Bank. Christian, welcome back.

Christian Rossler:

Good morning, andrew. Happy to be back.

Andrew Keith Walker:

We've got a great show this week, christian, taking us right the way back to when we started, if you can remember, or it seems like years and years ago, but it is just a couple of years. True, very exciting show because this is episode 23 and over the last two years we've covered off, of course, a huge variety of topics. But we are going back to the beginning because our guest this week is Alexandra Rook, who is, of course, a guest from episode one and is the head of trading for the securities finance desk in London for the collateral lending and liquidity solutions team, and also the star of episode two, banu Appas, who is the head of securities lending and borrowing at Clear Stream. Yes, and they're back because we have some more good news. Don't be Christian. Our first show was about the award-winning ASL Plus platform and they're back with another award. Tell us more about it.

Christian Rossler:

True, we are back with a show on securities lending, and it's true that the very first GFF podcast in June 2021 was with Alex and it was about the award-winning ASL Plus platform. Here we are, 23 episodes down the road, two years later, and Alex is still winning Best in Class Securities Lending Award. So I'm very pleased to see that Alex is again rated top of the class and, as you mentioned it, we also have Banu on the show, who's on the product side, covering all the securities lending products, so I'm very happy to have those of them today on the show.

Andrew Keith Walker:

That's all right, Christian, and without further ado, I think it's time for us to introduce our special guests. Firstly, I'd like to introduce the man of the hour, the award winner of a lifetime achievement award, also known for his sartorial elegance cutting a dash through the city of London in Canary Wharf. It is, of course, Alexandre Roques. Alex, welcome back to the show.

Alex Roques:

Good morning Andrew.

Andrew Keith Walker:

Good to have you back. You bring some much needed class, frankly, to the studio today, because if you could see the recording people listening at home, christian and I are still in our pajamas, as we, as we'd like to. Sorry he's not. Christian looks great, I'm in my pajamas there. I'll admit it, I'm the scruffy one, banu. I'm sorry, you have to see that too. And also welcome back to the show. Banu Apers Head of Securities Lending and Borrowing and, of course, the person who has been working on these products, making sure they all come together and sing with the various different teams. Banu, welcome back to the show.

Banu Apers:

Thank you, andrew, good to be back.

Andrew Keith Walker:

It's good to have you back and you also look great this morning. I realize the three of you look fab. I'm the one who's really let the side down there. All I can say is thank goodness it's a podcast, because this is why we don't do videos. If you're listening at home, okay, fine. That's enough silliness now, Alex, let's kick off with you Now. First of all, congratulations. You have won the ISF Global Investor Award for the securities lending desk. And for those of you listening who think there are too many corporate awards these days and they're easy to win, let's just say this one is different, isn't it, Alex? Because this is the one that is voted on by borrowers, rating lenders in the space. Yes, this isn't just a LinkedIn vote. This is actually rated by market participants, and this is something you've been working towards since 2018. Every year, clearstream has moved up the rankings and you've been on the podium the last couple of years, but this time, you've actually won the bottle of champagne. Tell us more about it.

Alex Roques:

Thank you, andrew. And as you said, this Global Investor Award holds a special significance for us because this is survey based, so it has a special value because it's a very truthful representation of the view of the markets and the place the securities lending desk of Clearstream is holding on the market as of now.

Andrew Keith Walker:

Yes, and Banu, I want to come to you as well, because this isn't just a big win for the securities lending desk and we'll go into more detail about why they won the award but from a big picture point of view, it's also a recognition, isn't it, of the other teams across Clearstream and their sort of approach to integrating a very smooth and seamless product experience for clients across the whole products and operation side as well. Tell us more about the teams who are all sharing a little bit of the glory here.

Banu Apers:

Andrew, absolutely, alex and the team has been the face of our securities lending product towards the markets and to get to the point of winning the ISF awards and being in the top position, it requires a real team work and collaboration. When I make a reference to the team work, it's not only limited to lending and collateral teams within our CLLs family, but also our operations, it, sales and RM colleagues and beyond. We all have a role to play in creating, supporting and promoting our customer solutions, and also the focus on our customer centricity is very key here, and the outcome is there. It's the joint effort of various teams and people across our organization Alex, I mean tell us, let's get into a little bit more detail here.

Andrew Keith Walker:

You've been running the securities lending desk for 10 years now, so you've got a fairly long view of the securities lending space and how it's changed over time. So take us back to the beginning. Let's go back to those early days when the role of securities lending was still evolving the G20 meeting in Pittsburgh was still in recent memory and the financial crisis and all the various different currents that led to the evolution of the space and tell us this is the era of QE, asset purchasing programs, governments trying to stabilize the banking sector. What are the main events that stand out to you over those 10 years?

Alex Roques:

Okay, thank you, andrew. Very interesting question. I'm going to try to keep it simple.

Alex Roques:

Okay, I will say that what influence securities lending program are obviously the market dynamics, and what we've seen for the past 10 years is an immense changes in the market dynamics, which are due to monetary policies. We had for many, many years, as a result of the great financial crisis in 2008, a very dovish stand from the central banks with very low interest rates and then, after the quantitative easing type of program, asset purchase type of program. So it was a very, once again, dovish stand that created a certain condition and certain type of trades and which require that's the time certain type of liquidity. And what we've seen and I will fast forward for the past couple of years is, with the pandemic and the extreme involvement of the central banks to support the economy, it has created really a contrary forces to sort out all this inflation that we're going to have. And we've seen a change of paradigm on this Dovitz 10 towards something very much more ockish, where the central banks started to stop the QE, getting the cash back to them, cutting interest rates, and this has created also different needs from the buy side and from the borrowers. So what I'm trying to say here is the security learning program have changed because of the market's needs have changed and that's something that is important to note Now on the liquidity side and on the AVBDT side.

Alex Roques:

What I've seen also is a change in the nature of the source of the liquidity. In the past we used to have lenders which were the additional institutional type of counterparty, asset manager, central bank, sovereign firms that were bringing to the lending pool their own assets and, as a result of this, asset purchase is from the Eurozone central banks. We also have an added liquidity which comes from this program that we need to re-inject in the market. What I'm trying to say here is now there is clearly two layers, two types of liquidity that are available on the market. You have a Eurozone type of central bank type of liquidity, which are much more trying to support the liquidity out there and to ensure clear functioning of the market and limit settlement friction. But you also have a liquidity which comes from other type of lender which are much more brought to the market in an opportunistic way.

Christian Rossler:

Let's dive a little bit into what happened since the global financial crisis. Alex already mentioned that they started to do these extraordinary measures at the ECB. So they started to launch asset purchase programs, which is in 2010. There was COVID bond programs and 2015 there were the public purchase asset programs. Then came the pandemic, with the pandemic, emergency purchase programs.

Christian Rossler:

And yes, monetary policy is also about refinancing operations, and main refinancing operations, which are in the jargon known as MRROS, are usually weak because these are all term transactions, and the ECB started to also there do extraordinary measures and they started to do targeted longer term refinancing operations which have a maturity which goes far beyond a week and even months. But there's still between above a billion of cash which is still out there that ECB has landed to the banks under the TROS, and one has to specify here, because banks actually can borrow under the TRTRO only if they can show that the loans they give to the non-financial institutions, so loans they give to households and corporates, and then there's a ratio which is applied and under this ratio they can then turn around and borrow under the TRTRO from the central bank. Now this is really the big picture. Where does that fit into today's discussion I think is relevant, because any monetary policy operation meaning credit operation that the central bank is doing is against collateral.

Christian Rossler:

And this is where it gets now interesting. If you see that there's still a more than a billion of cash which is to be reimbursed, then there's also a billion of collateral which is going to be released by the central bank, and so we are now at TRTRO7 and there is still a couple of tranches until TRTRO10 that come to maturity by the end of 2024, so in one year. So I think that we see now that collateral is being released up to the end of 2024, so we're not going to be in a collateral scarcity environment which we have been in the very beginning, because when we actually started the financial crisis there was a collateral scarcity. Now we are in a different environment and obviously that also impacts interest rates, and so, yes, that's a little bit, I think, where the link is with the security landing, but I'll leave it up to Alex to comment on that.

Andrew Keith Walker:

Okay, good, Now that's the big picture. Let's start to zero in a little bit more now on Q4 2023. Alex ASL Plus is an award-winning program. Now, Again, take us through the unique features that seem to be syncing up high ratings from borrowers with the current conditions they're faced and making them value it so highly. Now there are four main categories of activity that you engage with as part of the program, so take us through them and let's have a look at which ones are most in demand now.

Alex Roques:

I would say that the main four trades that we are doing with borrowers of now are collateral upgrades, exchange of collateral or collateral swap. In a simple way, lending special, cheapest deliver, and so on. And then we have the last category, which will be lending corporate bonds or emerging markets, which are more short coverage type of trade. What we've seen now is last year, in Q4 2022, the main trade that was the most active was really lending special. Everything was special, the curve was special, especially on the German bonds. There were a lot of interest once again from the buy side to borrow pretty much all maturities and nowadays I would say that this type of trade is probably a bit more subdued. That said, there is much more interest for financing because the buy side is more long in general. So there is a lot of demand for collateral upgrade, collateral swap and the last category of the short coverage on corporate bonds has always been there and there is always a lot of demand for market making activity and just needs of equity in general.

Andrew Keith Walker:

Now, bally, I want to come to you here because, with your product hat on, there are so many things that have changed this year alone. Of course, 2023 has been a huge year of change, with new factors influencing markets. Obviously, there's volatility, inflation, interest rate rises, geopolitical risk, instability, and things don't look like they're getting any simpler moving forward Now. Somehow you have to steer a product offering through these challenging times, so I want to hear more about the sort of standout features that you've baked into ASL+ that made it such a successful product. That's fit for the sort of market zeitgeist now.

Banu Apers:

Andrew, yes, moving on from the trading side the strategies and demand for trading to put product features, asl+ continues to be an attractive solution and it continues to offer advantages both to lenders and the borrowers.

Banu Apers:

Under a classical agency model, when the borrowers are borrowing from an Asian lender, they are facing the underlying clients and the combination of jurisdiction, credit risk and the underlying asset they are borrowing can be very costly in terms of RWA.

Banu Apers:

Clearstream program allows for borrowers to face Clearstream as a contractual counterparty, so in this case, they are facing a very stable counterpart in a stable-rated location. From a lender's perspective, we have a broad client base running their own land-landing activity. However, they consider our program as complementary to their business model. Depending on their strategy, we can act as further distribution of their portfolios. Leveraging our deep expertise in areas such as corporates, as Alex has mentioned it, and also the full client anonymity of the product is an advantage welcomed by our lenders. At this point I would like to emphasize that over the years, the Desk you know Alex and the team has developed a deep expertise not only on the GC and also the corporate bond space. We're all already looking at a corporate bond space almost as a separate asset class, and also we see an increased demand from our peers looking at sourcing their corporate bonds for lending activity.

Andrew Keith Walker:

And I guess the million dollar question or perhaps it's a billion euro question is what are the features you're going to be putting in place for 2030, for and for, you know, potentially more disrupted times ahead?

Banu Apers:

One of the key areas where we are looking at it is strengthening our solution by assets class expansion. In this case, we are going into the exchange-traded funds lending business across all our lending products. We are also looking at increasing the information sharing, accessibility and transparency of our products through our data and connectivity solutions and also leveraging our infrastructure. As you know, Clearstream Fund Centre is part of our Clearstream organizations and it's been set up dedicated to service the investment funds in ETFs. As a side note, we're holding more than 50% of the European ETF positions, so this gives us a strength to leverage our customers' holding positions and also provide excess liquidity towards the market participants in the space of ETFs.

Andrew Keith Walker:

There are, of course, new things happening as well. On their question to do with connectivity with the Federal Reserve, when I heard that the feds were talking to you, I assumed the FBI had finally tracked you down for crimes against carbon fiber bicycles, but it turns out that in fact, it is actually the Federal Reserve and connectivity for ASL Plus. Tell us more about that. That's offering real advantages to market participants, giving them access to US Treasury bonds.

Christian Rossler:

Yes, Andrew, us Treasury securities is obviously part of the high-quality, liquid asset basket of securities that we are borrowing from the market and then lending into the community of borrowers that Alex is facing.

Christian Rossler:

And, interestingly, I think Alex Beskot also rated first in class in the Americas, which is actually telling us that there's borrowers in the market that now come to our desk to borrow US securities which, historically, we are actually a European firm and we also lend mainly, as you know, a European fixed income and US Treasury securities are mostly kept in the US. So we have to build a bridge into the US market for those of our lenders that keep their US securities not in custody at Clearstream but in the US and since we are mainly Boring from sovereigns and central banks, they keep most of their US Treasury securities in the American Central Bank, which is the US Federal Reserve Bank. There's a link which we have been working on to source US Treasury securities from accounts at the Federal Reserve Bank into Clearstream Banking's securities learning program. So, exclusively for the purpose of borrowing US Treasury securities, we have a link now where we can directly transfer securities US Treasury securities, free of payment, from the Federal Reserve Bank into Clearstream Banking.

Andrew Keith Walker:

Alex, you've got all the plaudits stacking up here. A lifetime achievement award as well, let's not forget. I want to talk a little bit more about this. So we've got US securities specialist expertise a huge set of criteria against you, a judge Now. One of the things that really stood out, though, was the way market participants responded to your sort of proactive management approach, and the way that Clearstream can optimize deals for borrowers and lenders. Tell us more about that, because you were ranked on all sorts of interesting criteria like breadth of supply, trading and funding Obviously, all the usual stuff you expect. You scored very highly for relationship management, operational efficiency and optimizing deals. Yeah, there is a different type of category.

Alex Roques:

That's all borrowers have rated us. One of them is obviously trade idea generation, and that's something that I'm especially proud of because we have a very proactive way and every time we speak with our borrowers they always give us similar feedback that we are very close to the market, meaning that we know what's happening in terms of what is in demand. In the way that we are active in the distribution, we actually don't use that much platforms to distribute the liquidity we have. It's really a two-way conversation. We don't have a passive distribution where we put everything on the platform and hope for the best. We discuss all day long with borrowers as to understanding their needs, what they can do, what type of collateral they have and so on and so on, and it gives us a bit of an age because, on the other hand, I use this information to raise the liquidity that the borrower needs internally.

Alex Roques:

As you are very much aware, cliastream banking we are a custodian bank, so we have a massive security in our book under custody and it's very important to feedback this information on what the market needs because, to go back to your previous question, the needs of the borrower last year is not the same as the needs of the borrower this year, and so to have a new lender sorry or to have new liquidity tax times, it's not something that you will have overnight. It's a long work that we have to do with our RMs, and so it's. For instance, if I ask Christian Christian, I need to have a lender of US Treasury I know that it will take several months for Christian to release liquidity here, and maybe the trade that we need to do today is not going to be valid in six months or seven months. So that's why it's very important to be always on top of what the borrower needs, because then you can reply adequately to what they want, but also you can also raise the adequately liquidity on the side.

Andrew Keith Walker:

And I mean let's just drill into that a little bit more. When you say, well, of course needs have changed. They've changed, haven't they? Over the course of this year, we've seen so many unprecedented sort of disruptive currents. I heard someone speaking about this in an event the other day and they said they think we've had eight or nine black swan events in finance markets at least over the last 10 years. Tell us about how things have changed this year. You know Q1, thru-ter, we're in Q4 now. Tell us. I mean, how have you seen things change this year when it comes to borrower needs?

Alex Roques:

Q1 2023 was continuity of Q4 2022. I will say that the market, where that we've seen at the end of last year was very, was an exceptional one, meaning that the type of spread that we've seen during this quarter in all European government bonds were completely through the roof. There were immense demand for liquidity and so the Q2, the first quarter was a bit of normalization of that. You know, I think a lot of buy side and borrower started to unwind some of the position or, you know, reassess the position, you know the trade adequately. So I will say the first quarter has been a bit of a decreased in terms of liquidity and then we had a bit of a flat-ish type of market for Q2 and Q3 in terms of demand, with the occasional special there and there.

Alex Roques:

And then I will say, since that we enter the last quarter, I will say the market is very subdued, it's very quiet. There is no specific liquidity of pressure or scarcity which is perceived and we understand that once again, the buy side have moved from short basis to long basis, which have decreased a lot of their demand. And we understand also that, as is on the European government bonds demand a lot of the buy side have moved from Europe to the US also. So now I think we are getting into the year-er turn, I would say in a very serene type of attitude. So I don't see any sort of pressure to go into the turn and I will probably expect 2024 to be, I would say, similar as what we see in terms of a lot of demand for collateral, upgrade and financing of collateral and, I would say, less special. The specialness of bonds is usually created by scarcity or the liquidity that we don't observe as of now.

Andrew Keith Walker:

Looking towards the future. What does the future hold? You know, christian and I love to get out our GFF podcast, crystal Ball, and ask our guests to look forwards. And also this is a special one too, because really it's like I've got here three instruments for the transmission of monetary policy out into the EU and, of course, beyond, as we find that regulators and governments seem to be sinking closer and closer in their desire to sort of address the global challenges we're seeing right now of inflation and, obviously, instability. So I'm going to just come by each of you and ask for a Crystal Ball prediction next year.

Andrew Keith Walker:

Christian, I'm going to come to you first because obviously you keep the Crystal Ball at your place. We don't have a, it's a virtual studio. So Christian's given us some cupboard space for the Crystal Ball. It's quite large and weighs a lot. Christian, we've seen market participants force to take the cash reserves from central banks. They're having to lend it into the market. It's bringing market participants sometimes back into spaces they haven't been in for a while because there's no more remuneration at central banks. Tell us, is this part of that central bank agenda to normalize the markets?

Christian Rossler:

as Alex just said, it's taking a deep breath because I think talking about future and predicting monetary policy is sheer not what is on our plate. I mean, it's something that Alex has nicely explained. I think it's impacting monetary policy implementation and then also central bank operational frameworks, in which you have the quantity tightening which is currently going on, meaning that the central bank removes liquidity from the market and will release collateral in exchange. Now I think that the balance sheet of the ECB and the central bank in general is not meant to collect deposits. This is something that happened throughout the quantitative easing. Many banks borrowed money from the central bank and then re-deposit at the central bank. The balance sheet of the central bank itself increased, which is not, to be honest, to be fair, that's not the central bank's mandate. The central bank is there to solve liquidity prices, but not to collect deposits.

Christian Rossler:

There are certain measures when it comes to monetary policy implementation in the eurozone, which we observe In the last quarter of 2023,. The ECB took minimum reserves requirements from commercial banks that are no longer reminirated. You know that commercial banks financial institutions that have access to central bank money they have to keep a certain minimum amount of cash at the central bank, which is called the minimum reserve requirements. That's an average Throughout the months. They need to have an average of cash left at the central bank. That's just a requirement from the central bank. They've always been reminirated but they are no longer reminirated. That's one of the signals that central bank sends. Another signal is that, to come back to the balance sheet of central banks, on the liability side of the central bank, they also collect government deposits, that is, cash from that management offices.

Christian Rossler:

The government of the eurozone countries keep obviously their cash deposits at the home central bank. The ECB put a bandwidth in which they reminirate these government deposits. The ceiling is obviously currently S tier minus 20 basis points, but the floor is zero. Home central banks can decide within that bandwidth how much they reminirate these government deposits.

Christian Rossler:

One central bank, which is not the least one, and it's the Bundesbank, the German central bank decided as of 1st of October to not reminirate those government deposits anymore, meaning that the Federal Republic of Germany, when it leaves cash overnight at the Bundesbank, ultimately at the ECB, is no longer reminirated. We can see, and we directly have a view on that, because we see that government deposits at ECB are withdrawn and they come back into the market, what Alex says they come back into the interbank market, the money market, and they come into, obviously, the largest segment of the money market, which is the repo market. And then obviously it also has an impact on the securities landing market, because you remember, in the very first episode of the podcast, I mentioned that the repo and securities landing are two sides of the same coin. This is what we see at the end of 2023 and I think we observe so that players inject more cash into repo platforms and that more collateral comes back into the securities network.

Andrew Keith Walker:

So, banu, I was going to say also, the reason, chris, you had to take a deep breath there was because the crystal wall is heavy, so I pass it to you. From a product perspective, product planners, product managers have had a tough time of late. You see that ECMS has been delayed. We know that there's potentially market participants who are going to have double reporting obligations as the UK diverges from EU regimes. We know that there are multiple refits for market participants that are coming in from CSDR through to Amir, through to Miffy and various other regimes. There's a lot of disruption out there that you have to plan for. So what's on your product managers? Crystal ball view for 2024?.

Banu Apers:

Yes, let me take a deep breath also on this side and from a product management perspective. Where we said is that let's set two key points, in the sense that for us it's going to be the diversification and also the connectivity. Because when we talk about the diversifications, as we mentioned, is it we would be looking at how we can expand our asset class offering, as Christian mentioned, that increase our accessibility to liquidity sources and also the profile of participants to our program? How does it fit into the items that you mentioned? The regulatory landscape is said. We see that EU and the UK they are diverging and converging at different areas. That's clear. So we have to keep an eye on the regulatory landscape on there and we also, as we touched upon the T plus one, accelerated settlement timelines is coming into the picture from different restrictions.

Banu Apers:

So this means that we need to diversify our efforts to understand how this will impact our customer base and also us, to reach a common or almost a standardized solution offering that could be servicing our customers on the site. And when I talk about the connectivity, our intention is not only establishing physical links to different market participants or locations, but also establishing data driven technology enabling customers to make decisions based on the data that we provide. One of our strategy is that slowly move away, servicing our customers, enabling them to service their requirements on real time databases. This doesn't mean that we are changing our client's centricity or our approach around it, but giving them the option to make decisions on a timely basis at any point during the day or basis lines. So, coming back to the crystal ball, we're looking at strategies, how to be more flexible and adhere to the changes in the shortest time possible.

Andrew Keith Walker:

So, alex, I want to come to you finally to have the last word with the crystal ball.

Alex Roques:

So you want to know what's going to happen in 2024? What's the ball wants to? Are going to ball. What the lender needs to bring to the markets, what the ECB is going to do no, I'm joking, obviously.

Andrew Keith Walker:

For a minute there I was going to say, wow, this is the best podcast ever. You've got those answers.

Alex Roques:

We have to start. Look, as I said, the central bank are in the driving seat here. So the security learning is merely a reaction of what the market will do according to the central bank's decision, which will be around rate hike cycle and the remuneration on the cash mainly, and all this transmission, as a Christian, of the monetary policies to the market. No, I can speculate, okay, and I can share my view. I will expect and that's what we observe now and, as I said, I will probably expect to see a continuity of what we are seeing now.

Alex Roques:

Okay, unless there is dramatic changes in the monetary policies towards, for instance, the cash remuneration at the ECB or the reinvestment part, the purchase program the name is PPP, but if things stay where they are now and without any significant movement, I will expect this kind of market to move, to stay where it is, meaning that they moved from a short basis to a long basis.

Alex Roques:

So it will mean that there will be less demand for special and more demand for financing. So what I mean by financing is, as the market is going to be generally more long of bonds, they will need to finance that. So it will have an impact on the repo that we already have observed that's what Christian also said and more demand for collateral upgrades. And one of the challenges here will be risk appetite, because the kind of spread that you have in collateral upgrade are much, much tighter than on the specials. So it's put more pressure on the type of haircut that you can charge, but also in other parts of the regulations such as RWA. So next year it's going to be likely to be a volumes game which has a special focus on the optimization in terms of haircuts and risk intermediations.

Andrew Keith Walker:

That's it. We've got a title together now, but you heard it here first Predictions for 2024 from an award-winning team, winners of lifetime achievement awards, and something that I think everyone at Clearstream is very proud of and something that everyone else in the market is probably very envious of as well. For that, we'd like to give a huge round of applause to our guests this week. First off, banu Appas, the head of lending and borrowing products at Collateral Lending and Liquidity Solutions at Clearstream Bank. Banu, thank you very much. Thank you, andrew. Thank you A well-deserved round of applause there. And also for the man of the hour, the Max Verstappen of Securities Lending, without any question the head of Securities Lending Trading Desk at Collateral Lending and Liquidity Solutions at Clearstream, based here in London too as well. If you're in the city, look him up, because he's also a very nice guy to go and grab a coffee with. It is none other than Mr Alex Rock. Alex, thanks for joining us again. Thank you.

Alex Roques:

Thank you for your time, Andrew. Thank you.

Andrew Keith Walker:

Then all that remains is for me to thank my crystal ball lifting long-suffering co-host, without whom, of course, we wouldn't have a GFF show with all your expert insights into the world of central banks and business development thereof. It is, of course, vice President for Business Development at CLL I'm just going to use the acronym now. It is, of course, mr Christian Roster.

Christian Rossler:

Yes, it is, it's always a pleasure.

Andrew Keith Walker:

It is. It's always a pleasure to have you, christian, and you better get moving before the FBI do and come and arrest you for crimes against bicycles. As for those of you who don't get that joke, by the way, go back and listen to previous episodes of the show. Christian is an extreme sportsman and he certainly needs extreme equipment. Don't forget to join us, of course, on our LinkedIn page that is linkedincom slash company, slash Clearstream, where you can connect with Alex and with Bannery and with Christian and, if you want, with myself, and find out more about what's going to be coming up on the GFF podcast in the future.

Andrew Keith Walker:

On that note, I will say it's goodbye from everybody here at the GFF podcast, from Clearstream Banking, from the Deutsche Börse Group and from me, andrew Keith Walker. Have a safe month, have a good month and we'll see you next month. Bye-bye. Don't forget that this show was brought to you by Clearstream Banking, one of the main sponsors of the GFF Summit every year in Luxembourg, and features members of the Clearstream team and special guests expressing their personal opinions, not the opinions of Clearstream as an organisation. And remember none of the information in this podcast should be taken as legal, tax or other professional advice. See you next time.