Clearstream, Deutsche Börse Group’s post-trade services provider, has reached a significant milestone of a digital issuance volume of €10 billion on its next-generation digital post-trade platform, D7.

With D7, Clearstream aims to digitise the entire post-trade value chain, helping the financial industry to move to the digital world. Starting with the issuance process, D7 already processed over 250,000 digital issuances.

Key financial institutions have already connected to D7, digitising their issuance portfolios of structured products and debt instruments without major implications to their existing tech stack. Germany’s promotional bank, KfW, used D7 for the issuance of its two latest EUR benchmark bonds as central register securities in June (€4 bn, 3ys) – increased to a volume of €5bn in September – and October (€3bn, 7ys).

Jens Hachmeister, Head of Issuer Services & New Digital Markets at Clearstream, commented:

“Reaching €10 billion in issuance volume plus the large number of securities already issued on our D7 platform not only reflect our clients’ commitment and trust placed but also highlight the transformative potential of scalable digital solutions in enhancing market efficiency and liquidity. We are excited to continue our journey towards a fully digitised post-trade ecosystem, leveraging cutting-edge technologies to deliver real value-add to our clients and the financial markets overall.”

The platform’s success is further bolstered by Clearstream’s participation as DLT Market Operator in the European Central Bank (ECB) trials and experiments, exploring the potential of new technologies for wholesale digital payments targeting a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). Recent successful live DLT transactions on D7 involved market players from across Europe, such as DekaBank, DZ Bank, Eurex Clearing, JP Morgan, NatWest, the German state of Saxony-Anhalt and the German central bank, Deutsche Bundesbank.

“The ECB trials have been very successful so far and the experience gathered has been invaluable. Clearstream calls for a frictionless lead-over of the proven trial infrastructure into a transitory solution. This would serve as the nucleus for developing a stable long-term solution to advance a competitive digital financial ecosystem in Europe,” adds Jens Hachmeister.