Post-Trade fees, evolving Operational Resilience requirements, and rapidly emerging AI risks were among the top talking points at this year’s PostTrade 360° Conference in Stockholm. A deeper look uncovers the concerns in the market.
Breaking the gridlock on Post-Trade costs
Post-Trade fees in Europe are facing much greater scrutiny, said panellists.
Regulators in the EU are pushing for more transparency and standardisation of Central Securities Depository (CSD) fees, as part of the Market Integration and Supervision Package (MISP), a critical pillar in the Savings and Investment Union’s (SIU) competition agenda.
“There has been plenty of Industry criticism about the opacity and lack of consistency in CSD fee structures, where invoicing schedules and terminologies can be quite variable. In the case of ICSDs, for example, some of their invoice schedules are very long, meaning Clients often struggle to identify what they are even paying”, said Conor Melaugh, Business Development Associate, MGTL, speaking during PostTrade 360°.
He added: “Compounding matters further is that invoice management remains a heavily manual process, which can make it difficult for Banks and Brokers to reconcile their costs.”
This regulatory intervention also comes not long after the Association for Financial Markets in Europe (AFME) and The ValueExchange put out a report showing European CSD costs are comparably higher than those in North America. The report noted that European settlements are 65% more expensive, and custody fees up to 650% higher, adding that if European markets applied North American pricing models, CSD Participants could save close to €1 billion a year. [1]
“Around three quarters of the costs of executing a trade in Europe are incurred during the Post-Trade stage, making it an area that warrants much closer attention”, said Peter Tomlinson, Managing Director, Equities Trading and Post-Trade, at AFME.
CSD charges in Europe score unfavourably against the US for several reasons.
Firstly, Europe’s fragmented market structure drives up costs for Investors. Europe has more than 30 CSDs, so its Post-Trade landscape is far less integrated than in the US, where the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) and its subsidiaries dominate the market.
With so many European countries, each with their own different regulatory regimes, implementing Post-Trade reforms, including shorter settlement cycles, the roll-out of the Eurosystem Collateral Management System (ECMS) and Target2Securities (T2S), change is often more complex and costly versus the US.
A lot of these EU reforms have also not delivered on their promised cost savings.
“T2S has achieved a lot of its objectives, but one thing it has not done is bring down Industry costs. Instead, we are seeing a replication of processes across T2S and CSDs, so Market Participants face both T2S and CSD charges for the same function”, according to Tomlinson.
Although Europe’s Post-Trade costs have come in for criticism, Tomlinson added that “The issue is more nuanced than it may first appear, highlighting that CSD functionalities in Europe are more sophisticated than in other markets. In addition, he also said the growing competition between Euroclear and Euronext in the ESES markets could potentially help drive down settlement fees”.
While settlement and safekeeping charges are rising in parts of Europe, clearing costs have fallen as CCP open access and interoperability continue to gain momentum. As Banks and Brokers place greater scrutiny on FMI fees, Melaugh said that “Vendor-enabled tracking and cost analysis will be critical to reducing costs”.
T+0 Settlements, Always On Markets: Are we sacrificing Operational Resilience for speed?
The global shift to shorter settlement cycles, together with the decision by a handful of leading US Stock Exchanges to adopt 23/5 trading hours, should, in theory, lead to greater Market liquidity, but some Clients think it could also come at the expense of Operational Resilience.
Despite concerns about Corporate Actions readiness, Speakers at PostTrade 360° are confident that Europe’s move to T+1 on October 11, 2027, will succeed and could pave the way for T+0.
This chimes with research from Tokenovate, a Post-Trade Technology Firm, which found that UK-based Firms expect T+0 or atomic settlement to arrive within an average of 3.7 years, before adding that 79% of Organisations already have it on their planning agenda. [2]
Clients may believe T+0 is imminent, but that does not mean they necessarily want it to happen.
Speakers said losing the ability to net transactions is one of the biggest obstacles facing T+0, alongside the much shorter processing window, which gives Back Office Teams less time to correct trade errors and could increase settlement fails and Operational Resilience risk.
Equally, the move to overnight trading in the US is going to put more pressure on Operational Resilience. As there is less downtime in a 23/5 trading environment to carry out systems maintenance or fix patches, this heightens the risk of operational issues going undetected.
AI’s Resiliency comes under the Spotlight
Despite AI’s productivity benefits, the Post-Trade Industry is not blind to the technology’s risks.
According to The ValueExchange, 80% of the Industry is currently using Generative AI in some capacity, with application development, Client servicing, data aggregation, onboarding and KYC, and sanctions screening being among the most popular use cases.
The Industry’s dependency on AI is growing, with 61% of Firms telling The ValueExchange they would feel a noticeable impact if the technology disappeared altogether, with 22% saying it would result in significant disruption. [3]
A Senior Executive at a CSD told PostTrade 360° that digital sovereign rails could potentially leave the Industry without access to AI.
The risk of AI tools being suddenly withdrawn should not be dismissed as pure hyperbole, particularly if countries impose protectionist measures or export bans on the technology, as the US did earlier this year with Anthropic’s Claude Fable 5 and Mythos models.
AI’s Cyber risks must also be taken seriously, according to a number of MGTL’s Clients, after Regulators warned that Frontier models are demonstrating increasingly sophisticated autonomy and problem-solving abilities, potentially exposing Financial Institutions to Cyber-attacks.[4] Conversely, the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) noted that some Frontier AI models at Banks are identifying Cyber vulnerabilities faster than they can be fixed, creating operational bottlenecks. [5]
What Next? Reflecting its recent growth, Organisers will move PostTrade360° from Stockholm to London in 2027, with future events planned for Milan, Paris, Singapore and Toronto. After a successful event in Stockholm, MGTL looks forward to reconnecting with Clients and Colleagues at SIBOS in Miami, and the upcoming regional Network Forums in New York, Muscat and Singapore.
[1] AFME – October 2, 2025 – Europe must confront high post-trade costs to deliver the Savings and Investments Union
[2] Disruption Banking – September 9, 2026 – 83% expect to meet T+1 deadline next year, but only 32% say they are fully prepared today
[3] The ValueExchange – AI in the Real World 2026
[4] FSB – August 31, 2026 – FSB Chair warns of risks arising from frontier AI models
[5] FCA – September 2, 2026 – Frontier AI and cyber resilience
