Our History
The Dutch nation is often lauded for its mercantile spirit. That was true in 1602 when the Amsterdam Stock Exchange was established, the oldest in the world, to handle stocks and bonds issued by the Dutch East-Indies Company (VOC). This was also true in 1978 when the European Option Exchange (EOE) was founded in Amsterdam to trade futures and options, by that time the first derivatives exchange outside of Chicago.
Our story goes on as you can read hereafter and undoubtedly, new exciting initiatives will be rolled out going forward. At ABN AMRO Clearing we have a history of worldwide business expansion and dedication to our clients. We are committed to the clearing business and will continue to invest in our services and to improve the support for our clients.
Our journey
2020
Covid-19 emerged in the world early 2020 and AACB, like anyone else in the industry, had to make quick changes to deal with staff work from home; having offices in many different jurisdictions, we had to deal with multiple and varied local regulations. The WFH-shift proved successful and we were able to continue servicing our clients with minimal disruptions.
During a period of most active and volatile markets, and despite the WFH circumstances, AACB processed 5.3 billion trades in 2020, versus 3.5 billion the year before; a record volume of more than 50 million transactions was processed in a single day, almost double the previous peak.
During the market turmoil in the first quarter some clients experienced difficulties and one client defaulted, due to a major market dislocation. We take pride in our client default track record, which was damaged by this event. An intensive, global risk self-assessment culminated in an extensive enhancement programme to incorporate new data points in our risk metrics. AACB revised its early-warning indicators, and made risk processes even more robust. We felt it was our responsibility to do our utmost for our shareholder, our clients and our staff. AACB was able to end the year ‘in the black’ with a small positive net operating result, which was quite an achievement given the scale of the loss taken.
In August, the Corporate & Institutional Banking (C&IB) division of our shareholder, ABN AMRO Bank, withdrew from both the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region and the Americas (both USA and Brazil). AACB is keeping a global presence, taking up a full banking license in certain locations (Hong Kong, Brazil) and where needed beefing up its local teams as a fully licensed entity in its own right.
2019
ABN AMRO Clearing acts as clearing agent for Eurex Clearing’s ISA Direct service for OTC Interest Rate Derivatives – a direct clearing membership for buy side firms. With this model, Eurex addresses changes in the regulatory landscape and contributes to the safety, robustness and efficiency of the overall market. In its first year, ABN AMRO acts as clearing agent for Swiss Life Asset Managers and for Raiffeisenlandesbank Niederösterreich-Wien AG (RLB NÖ-Wien).
Demonstrating its commitment to compensate for its global data center exhaust, ABN AMRO Clearing launches an Employee and Climate Action Reforestation Program with Land Life Company. It is important that our commitment to sustainability is tangible and that our employees and customers can see the impact created on the ground.
2018
The innovative ‘Banking as a Service’ (BaaS) is launched, developed on a new distributed ledger platform, based on Hyperledger fabric (blockchain). The BaaS solution enables financial services companies to hold client cash amounts for and on behalf of their respective clients. This works by use of individual client bank accounts held in the books of ABN AMRO Clearing Bank NV, as an alternative for escrow accounts. A first partnership is announced with Nx’change, a full-service exchange platform for tokenised securities and digital assets.
As a testimony to our ESG commitment, ABN AMRO Clearing sings a Memorandum of Understanding with Frontclear. The latter is a development finance company contributing to economic growth and financial stability through inclusive and liquid money markets. Both companies express a shared commitment to address clearing and settlement challenges in emerging and frontier markets in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
2017
ABN AMRO Clearing Bank hooked up directly to Monte Titoli as a Directly Connected Party (DCP), leveraging on its existing T2S connection to settle all transactions in Italian securities.
2016
Dubai Gold and Commodities Exchange (DGCX) welcomed ABN AMRO Clearing Bank N.V. as a Special Clearing Member on Dubai Commodities Clearing Corporation (DCCC) to deepen access to DGCX, the Middle East’s largest derivatives market.
ABN AMRO Clearing launches a clearing offering on the Warsaw Stock Exchange in an effort to support its client trading central European markets.
2015
In January 2015 the first futures trades were cleared by our Brazil operations. In September 2015 we obtained a full clearing license and now also clear options and securities.
2014
ABN AMRO Clearing sells 75% of HCH to Intercontinental Exchange (ICE).
2013
The Brazil market holds a tremendous growth potential and access represents a high priority for our traditional client base. ABN AMRO Clearing had already been active in the market for a few years through a local provider. The complexity of the market did not allow to scale that off-shore business model. A more sustainable solution was put in place when ABN AMRO Bank took over Banco CR2, a local merchant bank that merged with ABN AMRO Brazil. Benefiting from the newly acquired banking license, AAC started a project to become a local clearer on BM&F BOVESPA.
ABN AMRO Clearing sells 50% of EMCF to EuroCCP and BATS-Chi-X.
2011
The creation of Holland Clearing House (HCH) opened up the possibility for The Order Machine (TOM) to service derivatives retail flow on a ‘best execution’ basis. This successful initiative allowed stakeholders to manage and control both costs and service in every part of the value chain. In a relatively short period of time, TOM reached market shares of more than 30% in equity and index option contracts on the Dutch market.