In 2025 Cboe Clear Europe started clearing European securities financing transactions (SFTs) involving European cash equities and exchange-traded funds across 19 European central securities depositories. On 24 August 2026 the service is expanding into fixed income, which will have a much bigger impact on capital efficiency for market participants.

Vikesh Patel, global head of clearing and president of Cboe Clear Europe told Markets Media that there was demand for equities SFT clearing in what had been a predominantly bilateral market. However, the firm knew the bigger balance sheet relief was always in fixed income. He said: “Clients have said they had to turn business away because of their balance sheet constraints.”

Since going live, the equities SFT clearing service has been adopted by a range of principal lenders, agent lenders and borrowers according to Cboe Clear Europe. Daily notional outstanding loan values have reached €9bn and over 1,000 settlements per day.

Cboe Clear Europe recently hit a record of clearing €10bn in notional on a single day in the equities SFT clearing service, according to Patel. He highlighted that the addressable market for fixed income stands to be multiples of equities.

“The balance sheet driver and operational efficiencies of introducing SFT clearing have been important,” he added. “Clients really like the operational efficiencies and the material drop in fail rates because we are in the middle of the process.”

Cboe designed the SFT platform to be ready for fixed income from the beginning. The firm just had to add a few unique stress scenarios and some processing for areas such as coupon and redemption before launching fixed income SFT clearing. On 24 August clients’ connections will be enabled for fixed income so Patel expects volume from day one, with settlements ramping up into the end of this year.

The fixed income service will include certain EU, Swiss and UK government and corporate bonds for all lenders and borrowers. Non-U.S. beneficial owners can lend U.S. treasuries to non-U.S. domiciled borrowers.

“We are working on the legal assessment to onboard the U.S. as a jurisdiction this year which will enable U.S. domiciled beneficial owners to lend EU securities to European domiciled borrowers or vice versa,” added Patel.

He believes that SFT clearing is a good example of how European-based innovation can lead globally and said Cboe Clear Europe is excited about taking it into different jurisdictions around the world.

Patel is also “very confident” that Cboe Clear Europe will have two new borrowers for fixed income by the end of 2026, and two large global agent lenders next year. He added: “This will result in a near doubling of supply.”

Equities

Cboe Clear Europe also clears cash equities across venues with an interoperable clearing model. The firm said it had cleared one billion total client cash equities trades by 31 July 2026, reaching that total faster than last year, and that it reached a record market share of 52%.

The interoperable model allows market participants executing trades on participating venues to choose where their transactions are cleared. For example, Cboe Clear Europe began clearing cash equities for OneChronos, the U.S. alternative trading system, which launched its EU and UK venues in July this year. These new connections represented Cboe Clear Europe’s 53rd and 54th trading venue connections according to the firm.

In contrast, in a vertical model trades executed on a venue have to be cleared at the associated central counterparty (CCP).

“We have market share on cash equity venues with fully interoperable clearing of well above 50% and had a record July on almost every measure, so I hope that the policymakers see the benefit of interoperability,” added Patel.

In July this year Cboe Europe joined trade associations representing European sell side, buy side and market makers in a letter calling for the introduction of mandatory clearing interoperability for EU cash equities CCPs as part of the European Union’s market integration and supervision package.

The letter said meaningful interoperability across EU cash equity markets remains only partially realised as a result of preferred clearing arrangements that do not offer true choice. Firms have to maintain multiple CCP relationships which limits opportunities to consolidate positions, optimise collateral and achieve netting efficiencies, creating additional operational complexity and cost.

“I am cautiously optimistic that even if full interoperability is not mandated, we will get something that moves us forward,” said Patel. “We are working hard with policymakers and finance ministries to get a good outcome.”

Growth

“By the end of this year, Patel would like the balances cleared clear to be closer to between €20bn and €25bn, around 1.5 times the present balances.

“Whilst ambitious, we see good utilization rates, capital and operations efficiencies as the driver leading to adoption of fixed income,” he added.

Large utilization rates provide a strong foundation for expanding supply-side engagement, particularly among more asset managers, beneficial owners, UCIT funds, pension funds, and sovereign wealth funds with whom Cboe Clear Europe already has relationships, according to Patel. He added there are some really promising ongoing discussions with large sovereign wealth funds.

Europe is also cutting its securities settlement cycle by one day to T+1, the day following a trade, in October 2027. Patel said clients and early adopters are very excited about having some options when they get to T+1.

“A lot of stock loan activity happens to support core equities trading and settlement already on a T+0 basis, so having cleared supply provides more tools to manage the transition smoothly as well as the stock lending market itself,” he added.