Banks keen to break into settlement

Banks are looking to break into the last bastion of Europe’s securities market, the settling of trades, to meet growing pressure from regulators for safer trading backed with collateral.

Settlement is the process whereby legal ownership of a security is swapped for cash.

Bank of New York Mellon and other lenders may bypass Euroclear and Clearstream to build their own settlement houses, with Ireland a likely location, several industry officials said.