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EU OTC Derivatives Market: Reports of its death are greatly exaggerated?

On 19 October 2017, ESMA published its “first-time overview” of the EU derivatives market – a study of the size of the EU derivatives market based on aggregated data sourced from the 6 EU-authorised trade repositories.

The analysis takes the most updated values of all derivatives contracts with open interest at the end of 24 February 2017.  It represents the most accurate snap-shot of the state of the OTC derivatives market in Europe produced to date.  It makes for very interesting reading, suggesting that the OTC derivatives market continues to dominate (a) in terms of number of transactions executed across all asset classes, and (b) in terms of notional amounts traded (with the exception of equity derivatives and commodity derivatives).  It also confirms the fact that FX derivatives are almost entirely executed OTC, but this is will not come as a surprise.  A summary table can be found here- EU OTC Derivatives Market Analysis 2017. The analysis provides a fascinating insight into the extent to which trading that had once been conducted almost exclusively OTC has migrated to a centrally cleared model.There’s still some life in the old dog yet…

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