Jamie Richards examines growth opportunities in Canada’s securities finance markets, finding that lending revenues have remained strong through recent periods of global economic and geopolitical instability
As the world moves on from the aftershock of the pandemic, Canada has retained its status as a dynamic and attractive locale for securities finance institutions. America’s largest nation by area is home to its second-largest equities market, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence. In Q2 2023, Canada’s equities market generated US$104 million in revenue — a fair way behind the US, but miles ahead of any other Americas nation (Brazil comes in third with US$8 million in revenue). New regulatory initiatives, the upcoming switch to T+1 in May 2024 and technological developments promise to bring change to a location that has continued to offer a vibrant securities lending market.
According to data provided by S&P Global Market Intelligence, Canada’s revenues compare closely with Hong Kong, South Korea, and high-performing European countries for Q2 2023. Its high rank on the world stage has been cemented this year by strong equities and government bonds performance. Canada’s economy is large and diverse, with five non-banking equities making the top 10 by revenue from January to April 2023, representing the energy, mining, software and pharmaceutical sectors. Further to this point, the highest-paying equity was Canopy Growth Corporation, which trades on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) as WEED. This highlights a unique aspect of Canada’s laws and markets.
In 2018, the federal legalisation of marijuana triggered an explosive growth in the cannabis securities market, so much so that SFT called 2019 “the year of the pot stock”. However, the years since have been tough on the once promising segment. Canopy Growth Corp peaked at CA$67.74 per share in September 2018, just before legalisation. It now sits at CA$0.55 per share. Despite this, Canopy generated close to a tenth of all equities revenue in Q1 2023. Short interest in Canopy is substantial. As of 25 September 2023, Canopy has 35.3 million shares short, which is 7.2 per cent of float and 1.3 times average daily trading volume, according to StatMuse. Similar contractions have affected fellow cannabis stocks Aurora Cannabis Inc., Cronos Group Inc., and OrganiGram Holdings Inc.
However, today, the cannabis securities market is falling to the wayside as new trends emerge. Canada has done well across the last few years in the recovery from the pandemic era. S&P Global Market Intelligence data shows that revenues are strong, even in the face of geopolitical instability. In the equities market from 2021 to 2022, value on loan ex-financing rose 23.3 per cent to US$57.1 million and utilisation climbed 16.7 per cent to 6.4 per cent. In that same period, revenues increased 17.5 per cent to US$353.6 million. Although it is not yet on par with pre-pandemic levels, it does suggest solid recovery. Additionally, the weighted average fee was 0.7 per cent as of Q1 2023, up from 0.6 per cent across all of 2022.
Strength and change
Rob Ferguson, chief capital markets officer at CIBC Mellon, says: “The Canadian securities lending market has remained resilient and continues to show encouraging signs of growth, driven particularly by stronger demand from institutional investors seeking to enhance returns.” Ferguson highlights a shift in demand out of equity collateral and into cash collateral from US participants, as well as an uptick in demand for cash on the Canadian fixed income market.
Data provided by S&P Global Market Intelligence speaks to solid lending performance for government bonds. In 2022, utilisation saw little change compared to previous years, but value on loan ex-financing increased 11.2 per cent to US$120.9 million and revenues rose 16.8 per cent to US$139.8 million. In April, the Government of Canada issued a five-year US$4 billion global bond, aiming to diversify sources for the country’s liquid foreign reserves. At the time, the Government said that the bond’s tight pricing reflected strong demand, with a final order book upwards of US$13 billion.
“The Canadian government’s commitment to promoting a stable and secure financial market has further bolstered the outlook for the securities lending sector,” Ferguson continues. He credits the government’s proactive regulatory approach for engendering a favourable investment climate. “In February,” Ferguson explains, “Canada’s Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions raised its Domestic Stability Buffer requirement 50 basis points to 3 per cent. As organisations adjusted their capital planning to the revised requirement, we saw greater activity in dividend reinvestment programmes. Looking ahead, we anticipate that this activity may subside as domestic banks readjust to the macroeconomic environment.”
For Broadridge’s vice president of product management Mary Beth Law, there is further potential to unlock with greater infrastructural modernisation. Law says: “Most dealers have been relying on legacy applications that are impeding their capacity to adapt to digital and straight-through processing (STP) requirements. Modernisation and transformation will be significant themes for the industry on a go-forward basis.” Law also highlights the firm’s ongoing investment in its capital markets and wealth platforms.
“There are three general drivers we see in the market,” Law explains, “the first being convergence and consolidation. The market structure of the securities industry is changing. The capital structures consolidating the industry are now being felt in convergence of services focused on the advisor and client as large firms drive wallet-share and cross-selling opportunities.” She goes on to list integrative digital user experiences and also keeping operating expenses and productivity in check as essential for growth.
Part of that modernisation may be around the corner. TMX Group, which owns and operates the Toronto Stock Exchange, has partnered with Clearstream to develop the Canadian Collateral Management Service (CCMS), the first triparty service in what is currently the world’s largest bilateral-only market. Clearstream’s head of collateral, lending and liquidity solutions Marton Szigeti spoke to SFT about how CCMS will benefit clients and Canada’s securities market as a whole. Szigeti says: “The underlying driver is to increase the velocity of collateral in the Canadian market. We will see the need for alternative forms of liquidity as the bankers’ acceptance benchmark fades out.” Szigeti also references the upcoming shift to a T+1 settlement cycle in Canada as calling for increased velocity.
Szigeti calls the demand for CCMS “enormous”: “We have had fantastic support from the main market participants,” he explains. “We’re pushing to go live in Q4. It feels like a very positive environment where we are launching a product that has had a large amount of market support.”
Even if revenues are not yet at pre-pandemic levels, the impact of the global geopolitical shake-ups of the last two years cannot be underestimated. Through this lens, Canada comes out looking remarkably strong. Ferguson says: “Typically, we see global investors looking to Canada as a source of stability during times of global uncertainty and volatility. With increased volatility comes increased securities lending volume.”
There are naturally a fair number of challenges facing Canada’s securities finance industry as it adapts to keep pace with global trends and maintain its strength. Law names higher rates, decreasing supply opportunities, ongoing frictions in selling and loan management resulting from processes between lenders and dealers as challenges facing the securities lending market.
Another fixture of Canada’s economy in the last two years — in line with many leading global economies — has been rising interest rates. Policy interest rates have increased tenfold in the last 18 months, and rates for treasury bill yields, bond yields, and overnight repo are also increasing. Ferguson notes: “One immediate consequence is the shifting landscape of securities lending profitability. Additionally, rising interest rates affect the cost of financing for market participants engaged in securities lending. Margin requirements and funding costs may increase, potentially impacting the profitability of lending.” Szigeti, on the other hand, notices a stabilisation around government bonds and slightly elevated spreads on corporate bonds.
As a financial regulator, the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) face the task of balancing shifting climates with fairness and stability. The CSA is a coalition of Canada’s territorial and provincial securities regulators which aims to improve and coordinate regulation of the country’s capital markets. It also sets policy for disclosure and monitoring of diversity, equity, and inclusion within the capital markets; currently the CSA is consulting with stakeholders to build on current disclosure guidelines for women on boards and in executive officer roles. A spokesperson for the CSA suggests that, currently, reducing regulatory burden is high on the organisation’s agenda: “The CSA and its members strive to adequately protect investors while reducing the regulatory burden on issuers and the investment industry.” The spokesperson mentions the recent passing of the National Instrument 45-106 Prospectus Exemptions: “[This] allows smaller issuers listed on a Canadian stock exchange to raise smaller amounts of capital from the public without having to prepare a prospectus.”
Bracing for T+1
One defining change on the horizon is the upcoming move to T+1 settlement next year. Alongside its continental neighbours, the US and Mexico, Canada will switch from the present T+2 settlement cycle in May 2024. The launch date has garnered some discussion as it falls on a long weekend in the US, creating a one day discrepancy between the Canadian launch on 27 May and the US switch on 28 May. Despite this ostensible lack of parity, the Canadian Capital Markets Association reaffirmed its commitment to the date in February.
Naturally, this has pushed companies to prepare and adapt. Mike Norwood, head of trading solutions at EquiLend, says he expects trading desks to be well prepared: “With the pressures put on settlement and other operational functions it will be advantageous for desks to embrace automated trade execution and ensure their trade details are ingested into their downstream systems in a clean and matched manner.”
Law tells SFT that Broadridge is making changes to its platforms to be compliant with regulation and upgrading realtime and STP capabilities. “We are actively testing with the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation,” she explains, “and will test with the Canadian Depository for Securities (CDS). We believe that industry testing and readiness of all stakeholders will be key to success.” Law states that resolving the friction present in current processes will be key to avoiding fails when T+1 arrives.
Ferguson anticipates pressure particularly in the warm and hard-to-borrow space. He explains: “Often, the agent lender will receive the sale notification either late in the day or on the following day, resulting in the recall being processed a day late. Under T+1, this would result in the recall being sent out on a T+0 basis, without giving the borrower time to source additional supply elsewhere or to buy back the position.” He adds that agent lenders may need to hold larger buffers to accommodate late sales in less liquid names, reducing maximum potential revenue, and suggests the industry may need to modify deadlines for recalls to remedy the issue.
Tech advancements
Common across the industry is a push for new technology to help alleviate the transitional pressures T+1 brings, as well as to modernise and boost the existing market infrastructure. Clearstream’s CCMS promises to bring triparty functionality to the Canadian market — a technological leap which the firm says will allow clients to automate collateral management movements. The firm is working further on new innovations in the collateral management space. The Own Selection Criteria with Automated Reasoning (OSCAR) application combines machine learning, natural language processing, and automated reasoning to automate collateral management. “It is [currently] a fairly arduous process to get collateral schedules set up,” explains Szigeti. “OSCAR is a graphic user interface that connects to our platform. It understands what you are entering in plain English and creates an eligible collateral schedule for you and your counterparties. You then select your counterparties and click match. The counterparties receive a message and you are done.” Szigeti estimates that OSCAR reduces a three week process to a three minute process.
Ferguson predicts that increasing automation and the attendant increase in efficiency will translate to cost savings for clients, with CIBC Mellon actively investing in new technology capabilities. He explains: “The rise of technologies like distributed ledger technology (DLT) and automation ensures that transactions are recorded transparently and securely. It also speeds up transaction processing and significantly improves operational flexibility.” DLT is the basic principle of blockchain technology, decentralising transaction records for near-instant and simultaneous record keeping across multiple organisations.
Luxembourg-based fintech HQLAX, for example, uses DLT to enhance collateral mobility across disparate collateral pools. A spokesperson for the company says: “The HQLAX platform is well positioned to help streamline and synchronise cross-border collateral management activities for global market participants. For example, in the case of Canada and Europe, the time overlap for when both markets are open for settlement is narrow, therefore making it operationally challenging to settle securities finance transactions in such a short window. Using the HQLAX platform means that market cut off times are no longer an issue, with ownership transfer occurring at precise moments in time on a 24/7 basis, regardless of the location of the underlying securities.”
Broadridge stands as a major player currently making significant use of DLT in its Canadian operations. Law highlights the firm’s Distributed Ledger Repo offering, which uses DLT to manage repo transactions to boost liquidity. She says: “DLT (in particular the use of smart contracts) continues to gain traction with broker dealers and market infrastructure players. Most recently, the value being generated is primarily in lowering transaction costs and balance sheet relief due to enhancements in post-trade processing.”
Separately, Law explains that Broadridge is harnessing the potential of AI, another recent technological breakthrough: “Generative AI has shown capital markets that the promise of AI is real. At Broadridge, we have put this into practice with the launch of BondGPT, a co-pilot solution that enhances bond trader experience on our LTx platform.”
Canada’s securities finance industry has the robustness and flexibility to weather present challenges; that much is clear from increasingly strong performance in the last two years. This is a time of much more than survival, however. If firms can leverage the power of new technologies to push through rising rates, T+1, and other challenges, then an era of extraordinary technology-powered potential may be just over the horizon.
