Westdeutsche Landesbank Girozentrale (WestLB) has subscribed to Citibank e-business unit's CLS Settlement Services for foreign exchange settlement.
Citibank developed its CLS Settlement Services as part of its participation in the industry continuous linked settlement (CLS) initiative. CLS aims to reduce the settlement risk caused by foreign exchange transactions occurring across various time zones. This is achieved by the simultaneous settlement of both sides to a foreign exchange transaction. CLS will initially commence operations with approximately 40 participating banks.
Under this agreement, WestLB will be able to offer Citibank's CLS service to German savings banks and Landesbanks, saving them the effort of becoming CLS Settlement members direct.
Alfred Sennert, head of international payments at WestLB, describes the agreement as "the next logical step in the correspondent banking business" and says it will enable the bank to offer clients additional services in the international payments field without increasing its fixed costs.