The National Settlement Depository (NSD), Russia's central securities depository (CSD), revealed that in Q1 2020, the value of securities under custody reached RUB 50.9 trillion ($70 billion), marking a 10 percent increase compared with the same period of 2019.
The number of foreign securities issues serviced by NSD grew by 23 percent from 13.1 thousand to 16.1 thousand.
NSD noted that the value of the federal loan bond (OFZ) balances in foreign nominee accounts amounted to RUB 2.8 trillion; showing a 42 percent increase compared with Q1 2019 to RUB 2.0 trillion ($28 billion).
The total number of securities issues serviced by NSD increased by 17 percent from 20.6 thousand in Q1 2019 to 24.0 thousand in Q1 2020.
The number of inventory operations in the CSD increased 48 percent year-over-year and reached 1.3 million operations in Q1 2020 compared with 865 thousand in Q1 2019.
This includes 971 thousand exchange-trade operations and 309.5 thousand over-the-counter trade operations.
The value of delivery versus payment over the counter trades grew 146 percent and amounted to RUB 4.3 trillion ($61 billion), compared to RUB 1.8 trillion in the same period of 2019.
The aggregate number of trades conducted with the use of the Linked transactions and Instruction prioritisation services grew significantly to 13.9 thousand compared with 996 trades in Q1 2019.
Corporate actions
In Q1 2020, 668 meetings of securities holders were held using the e-voting technology. In total, 55 corporate actions to repurchase shares and one corporate action to exercise the pre-emptive right to purchase shares were also initiated. In Q1 2020, the total value of repurchased shares reached RUB 4.7 billion ($66 million).
According to NSD, the e-voting service was provided to clients of Surgutinvestneft, Russia’s largest regional registrar. Now, Surgutinvestneft’s clients can offer their companies’ shareholders to vote remotely at annual and extraordinary general meetings.
Currently, the e-voting service has been used at the meetings of shareholders of NLMK, Alrosa, Rostelecom, IC RUSS-INVEST, Sberbank, Rushydro, Gazprom Neft, and the Moscow Exchange.
In total, 3,482 corporate actions involving Russian securities were conducted in Q1 2020. It was 7 percent more than in the same period of the previous year (3,254 corporate actions in Q1 2019).
NSD observed that in Q1 2020, the number of corporate actions involving foreign securities grew sharply due to the increase in the number of securities issues serviced by NSD, which marked a 39 percent increase.
The total value of payments on corporate actions which involved Russian securities 30 percent increased.
Meanwhile, the number of payments on corporate actions involving foreign securities declined by 70 percent and reached the sum equivalent to RUB 85.2 billion ($1.2 billion).
Collateral management
In Q1 2020, the value of Federal Treasury repos conducted via NSD’s CMS amounted to RUB 3 trillion ($42 billion), compared to RUB 5 trillion in Q1 2019 ($70 billion); repo contracts were concluded for longer terms (the average repo maturity increased from seven to 23 days). In March, there was a sharp increase in the demand for liquidity due to high market volatility; the maturities of transactions were falling, and overnight trades prevailed.
In Q1 2020, the total volume of Bank of Russia repos reached RUB 779 billion ($11 billion) showing an increase of 305 percent compared to Q1 2019.
NSD said this was due in particular to the renewal of fine-tuning auctions in March 2020 to support the banking sector’s increasing demand for liquidity. NSD began the preparation to launch repos with a one-month fixed rate and a one-year floating rate.
Payment and Settlement System
In Q1 2020, the value of ruble transfers grew 13 percent and reached RUB 67.9 trillion ($949 billion), compared to RUB 60.3 trillion in Q1 2019 ($854 billion).
NSD identified a 10 percent increase in Q1 2020 in the amount of cash transfers, to RUB 11.8 trillion (167 billion USD).
The number of client transactions amounted to 334 thousand; this was 26 percent more than in Q1 2019 (264 thousand).
Elsewhere, NSD noted that is the first and only company in Russia and the CIS countries that has received an accredited local operating unit(LOU) status. This is a permanent status, which replaced the temporary one (pre-LOU). It confirms NSD’s compliance with Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (GLEIF) regulatory and technological requirements for an organisation which assigns and maintains legal entity identifiers (LEIs).
In Q1 2020, NSD assigned 19 new LEIs and verified 118 LEIs. LEIs assigned by NSD are recognised by regulators, market participants, and LOUs of other countries.
