EMCF amended its settlement management fee structure on January 1st 2010, resulting in a massive reduction in the monthly charges. Furthermore, based on its savings in 2009, EMCF will add additional benefit to its clients by lowering its settlement fees for 2010 where appropriate. EMCF, which estimates the cost per settlement at the beginning of the year, does not make a profit on these costs. Since 2009's volumes were so high, EMCF paid lower settlement fees to CSDs and the total cost of settlement funding could be divided over more settlements than initially expected. Some clients will get as much as €150,000 reimbursed.

"We are delighted to be able to reward and give back to our clients. This way they too can benefit from the low-cost yet superior systems we have in place to service the rapidly growing market," said Jan Booij, CEO of EMCF. "It's a clear example of the simplicity and transparancy we always advocate."

Our strategy of offering low-cost, pan-European services has generated steady volume growth on the platforms serviced by EMCF. BATS Europe, Burgundy, Chi-X Europe, Nasdaq OMX Europe, Nasdaq OMX Nordic Exchanges and Quote MTF, all of which are served by EMCF, benefit from the strong offering of EMCF and the connectivity to multiple markets. In fact, EMCF surpassed a record 5 million daily trades last month.

EMCF, which continues to charge the lowest overall costs per transaction of any European CCP, became the largest CCP for on-exchange European cash equities in Q4 2009. EMCF clearing volumes reached 2.5m trade sides on a European total of 7.1m per day on average in Q4 2009, according to statistics collected by FESE.