KBC Clearing throws in the towel

Short post on something very relevant. KBC Clearing will be shutting down operations. It didn’t come as a big surprise. They lost critical mass. Their major market maker clients went bankrupt (Van der Moolen), vanished (All Options) or left (Scrocca).

The Belgian mother KBC Bank decided to call it quits after 16 years. A sad thing for the staff at KBC and for the market as a whole.

Used to be two clearing banks for market makers in Amsterdam. Alas, no more. ABN AMRO (Fortis) is the only remaining clearing bank in town.