18 Oct 2002: Deutsche Joins EquiLend’s Lending System

Deutsche Bank has joined EquiLend’s XML-based global securities lending platform. Deutsche Bank is the first bank to join EquiLend’s 10 founding participants in the use of the platform. The platform offers its participants daily access to more than $1 trillion in assets for borrowing.

The EquiLend platform is an open, global, standards-based system that allows borrowers and lenders of securities to transact with each other through a secure hub. EquiLend eliminates the need for securities lending organizations to maintain costly point-to-point connections between counterparties. The platform’s XML standard, Securities Lending Markup Language (SLML), is currently available on the company's website, http://www.equilend.com.

“We are … pleased to welcome Deutsche Bank to the platform and look forward to working with them as the platform evolves,” said Dirk Pruis, president and CEO of EquiLend.

“Deutsche Bank’s participation in EquiLend reflects our steadfast commitment to adding value for our customers through automation,” said Jean-Paul Musicco, managing director and global head of securities lending at Deutsche Bank. “We strongly support the concept of a centralized hub built by the industry, and in EquiLend we see a powerful combination of efficient access to securities and new opportunities to streamline transaction processing.”

EquiLend creates efficiency by replacing manually intensive processes, such as the use of faxes, phone calls, and redundant back-office data-handling with a more seamless, standards-based electronic system. By reducing the need for manual intervention, the platform also lowers the risk of errors and failed transactions. In addition, by aggregating transaction data in a central electronic repository, EquiLend will facilitate the development of statistically significant, objective benchmarks. It has facilitated more than $120 billion in lending transactions since the platform went live three months ago.