Asset classes

Accessing the domestic and international asset classes you need is vital to supporting your business strategy.

We seek to make this process as easy as possible by acting as your single gateway to the European capital markets and providing you with the safest possible environment in which to hold your assets.

As the world’s largest group of securities depositories – €7+ trillion assets in custody – we give you access to assets issued in domestic and international markets, including:

• equities and equity-related instruments (warrants, rights, certificates)
• domestic bonds and money market instruments
• international bonds (eurobonds) and structured products 
• domestic and funds
• Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs)

You can hold assets in our:

• International Central Securities Depositary (ICSD) – CDB. This gives you access to international securities and the domestic securities of 48 markets
• Six European Central Securities Depositories (CSDs). We offer access to the respective domestic securities and certain international securities in Belgium, Finland, France, Ireland, the Netherlands, Sweden and UK.

Our solid risk control environment and robust legal, regulatory and technical framework are designed to protect your assets and guarantee your ownership rights.

You hold your securities in dematerialised form and transfers can only happen once instructions are sent across highly secure and resilient networks.

Assets held in:

• CDB are strongly protected under Belgian law, recognising we have no ownership rights over the securities held with us. CDB also holds some of the highest ratings in the industry.
• our CSDs are strongly protected under domestic law.