By Søren Rask Nymark, Partner | The 24th of November 2025

Recently a couple of important post-trade reports have been published addressing fragmentation and harmonisation of the post-trade markets.

The first is sponsored by the Federation of European Securities Exchanges and written by Oliver Wyman named “The liquidity matrix. Addressing the fragmentation in European equity markets”. The second is a publication by the European Central Bank on “Remaining barriers to integration in securities post-trade services – issues and recommendations. [links to both beneath].

“The liquidity matrix” stress the requirement of EUR 750-800bn annually, contributing to the realisation of the aims of the Savings and Investment Union. This include a more harmonised and efficient capital markets infrastructure. Their analysis find there are primarily three ways to do this. Either through consolidating venues (as mostly seen at Euronext), harmonisation and level setting of regulations and standards, or enhanced connectivity (connectivity layers/linking venues). Their conclusion is that the highest impact to reduced fragmentation (and thus maximised impact on real economy and a more attractive capital market) is through harmonisation and level setting of regulations and standards between all venues (even though the other options will contribute as well).

The report on remaining barriers to integration in securities post-trade services by the ECB/Eurosystem departs from previous analysis on barriers to market harmonisation in Europe as the Giovanni Group reports in 2001+2003 and the follow-up by the European Post Trade Forum reports in 2017. The ECB 2025 report analyse 43 barriers. In line with previous reports, they find that barriers related to tax processing, corporate events processing and legal/regulatory issues will have the greatest impact on post-trade integration (and a harmonised capital market). They conclude that even tough efforts like T2S, SCoRE, markets CA standards, CSDR regulation, the coming reduced settlement cycle have reduced the amount of barriers identified in previous reports, there is still a long way to go. They stress that: “Key sources of fragmentation remain and continue to impede better integration by market forces in the securities post-trade domain”.

Currently, Capital Market Partners is assisting an extensive part of the Danish/Nordic market preparing for the change in settlement cycle from T+2 to T+1 as well as the transition to the Euronext Convergence platform. We support the ambitions to strive for a harmonised European capital market and stand by for continued dialogue with market participants on post-trade topics.

Contact: Partner Søren Rask Nymark, +45 4050 6193, srn@cmp.as