Euroclear

Euroclear, or the Euroclear Group, is a Belgium-based financial market infrastructure group that specialises in the central securities depository (CSD) segment. It traces its origins to the Euro-clear System developed in 1968 by Morgan Guaranty (a predecessor of JPMorgan Chase) in Brussels to settle trades on the then developing eurobond market. The service was rebranded Euroclear (without hyphen) in 1990. In late 2000, the Euroclear System was transferred to a new entity, Euroclear Bank, a fully owned subsidiary of the Euroclear Group that has remained one of the world's two leading international CSDs, the other being Clearstream Banking SA in nearby Luxembourg. Other entities of the Euroclear group include major national CSDs acquired by Euroclear in the 2000s in Belgium, Finland, France, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the UK. The name "Euroclear" is often misinterpreted as indicating a clearing activity of the Euroclear group, which is actually not the case. This confusion comes from the name originating before the widespread adoption of central counterparty clearing, in a time when securities clearing and settlement were often viewed as a single activity.