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The global securities finance industry generated US$850 million in revenue for lenders in February 2023, a 34 per cent increase year-over-year, according to DataLend.
However, this represents a 4 per cent decline month-on-month from the US$890 million generated for lenders in January 2023.
Global broker-to-broker activity, where broker-dealers lend and borrow securities from each other, increased 30 per cent YoY for February, totalling an additional US$240 million in revenue.
According to DataLend, the improvement in lender-to-broker revenue over 2022 was largely due to a continued increase in fees. Globally, across all asset classes, lending fees climbed 40 per cent YoY and 7 per cent from January.
A strong market for prominent US equities helped to increase revenue by 51 per cent in North America, says the market data service of fintech EquiLend.
North American securities trading “special”, where fees meet or exceed 500 basis points, generated US$329 million, a 108 per cent revenue increase over the same period last year.
The top five earners in February 2023 were the same five securities as in January. These were AMC Entertainment Holdings (AMC), Lucid Group (LCID), Beyond Meat Inc (BYND), MicroStrategy (MSTR) and GameStop Corporation (GME).
In total, the group generated US$155 million in revenue in February and US$30 million more than they commanded in January.
DataLend highlights that performance in EMEA and APAC across all asset classes faced YoY revenue improvements of 22 per cent and 2 per cent, respectively. However, earnings in these territories did decline from the start of 2023 with a month-to-month dip of 18 per cent in EMEA and a 10 per cent in APAC.
