GFF Podcast

The ESM Story: Building Stability in European Financial Markets

• Clearstream • Season 5 • Episode 4

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In this special episode, we chat with Kalin Anev Janse, CFO of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM). We discuss the evolving role of the ESM, the Savings and Investments Union, ESG holdings and the role of the Euro as a global reserve currency. Join Andrew Keith Walker and Christian Rossler for a lively chat about the future of EU finances and the role of the EU in the global economy of the future

Speaker 1:

well, welcome back to the gff podcast. Uh for uh this month of october, and we have a very special show for you today. Now, I know I say that one uh every month, uh, but uh, we've had a celebration every show uh so far, and we are keeping that going with this one as well. Of course, you remember the first show. We were very excited about the 30th anniversary of the GFF. That's coming up at the next GFF Summit at the end of January next year.

Speaker 1:

We've celebrated 20 years of GC pooling, 25 years of Forex Market 360T, and it was my birthday just a week ago at this recording as well. So I'm going to throw that one in the mix and say, yes, I'm 39 again and I'm delighted, and certainly I was delighted with all the presents I got. Thank goodness that the Trump tariffs didn't stop them from sending me high quality Lego and some new sensible shoes. On that front, of course, another man who's 39 every year for some time now it's my co-host, the man without whom there's no GFF, and the very young-looking Mr Christian Rossler. Christian, welcome back.

Speaker 2:

Hi Andrew, hi Callan Welcome.

Speaker 1:

Yes, Christian, that's right. Our guest this week is someone who's taking time out of their busy schedule. It is Kalin Anavyonsa, who you will know, of course, as a member of the management board and the CFO of the European Stability Mechanism, responsible for over 300 billion euros for the ESM and, of course, for the EFSF funds. We're going to be getting into that in more depth, Callan. Welcome to the show.

Speaker 3:

Thank you very much. Andrew and Christian Glad to be here.

Speaker 1:

You already know Callan, I am sure, from his sort of high profile media presence. If you don't, we're very excited to have him in the studio and I'm excited to do the usual CV bio run through. Now. I'm going to say now, callan, you've kind of wrecked it for every guest that comes on after this now, because I think you've won CV top trumps for sure. We've had some impressive CVs on before. I'm just going to come in here and say Callan, of course, is the chief financial Officer and a member of the Management Board at the ESM. He is, previous to that, was the Secretary General and a member of the Management Board at the ESM. He chairs the Chief Financial Officer community at the World Economic Forum, where he was just a couple of weeks ago, and we'll be getting an update on the news and trends there. He is still a member of the European Council on Foreign Relations. He's the executive in residence at the International Institute for Management Development and his principal delegate at ICMA.

Speaker 1:

All of this started 18 years ago. So a man who's genuinely a lot younger than Christian and myself started out with an internship at JP Morgan back in 2007. Moved on to be an advisor on corporate finance at McKinsey. After that Then moved public side to the European Investment Bank Really interesting for us. He was on the Capital Markets Union, a high-level expert group for the European Commission. We will be talking about the Capital Markets Union a high-level expert group for the European Commission. We will be talking about the Capital Markets Union, or the Savings and Investments Union as it's called now. And was the young global leader for some years at the World Economic Forum. Callan, congratulations, you've won Top Trump CV bingo. Thanks very much for that and, I think, a huge round of applause for our special guest, kalin Anavianca.

Speaker 3:

I don't know what sound was better, the first one or the second one, but I think the second one rather than the first one.

Speaker 1:

You know, after all of that buildup and I hit the sad trombone button by mistake I am so sorry of all the people, of all the people, to get your production wrong with Callan. I do apologize for that. Moving on to serious talk, let's start off by looking at the ESM. For a long time it's been described as Europe's financial firewall, but increasingly it's changed, hasn't it? As things have stabilized, it's become a front-runner in sustainability leadership. It's a front-runner in the capital markets integration, the SIU plans and also with digital innovation. So, reflecting on the support that you've given countries like Greece, portugal, ireland and Cyprus and how successful they are now countries like Greece, portugal, ireland and Cyprus, and how successful they are now Do you think that the time for reform programs and restructuring is?

Speaker 3:

over or do we still have some danger zones in our future? Well, andrew, you're right, we are, I think, one of the new kids on the block. Still, I can say the EFSF was created 2010, so 15 years ago. Esm was created 2012-13. So we are still, I guess, a teenager if you look at the age of the institution. But for a teenager, I think we accomplished quite a lot. And for those of us that go a bit longer back, they remember the euro crisis, and I must say that because I meet more and more young people in universities who were still in elementary school when the euro crisis happened.

Speaker 3:

But 15 years ago, europe went through a very difficult time After the great financial crisis in the US 2008 to 2010,. It sparked over to the euro area, where we thought everything was well organized with one single currency, with the euro. But we saw that we have a great monetary institution with the ECB, but on the fiscal side, there was a lack of a lender of last resort if countries lost market access. So we saw countries like Greece and Portugal and Ireland and Cyprus just not being able to tap capital markets anymore, which was something we never thought would happen, especially because some of these countries were extremely highly rated In a very rapid time we had to create a new institution and my staff batch says I'm staff member nine, so it means that I was one of the entrepreneurs public sector entrepreneurs that tried to set up this institution, and back then we tried, in a very quick time to set up a credible firewall, because that's a word you use to capital markets and say look, there is a lender of last resort. If those countries lose market access, we are there to help them. So over the years we indeed supported these countries for almost 300 billion euros. We took them off the market, back in the market again and we deliver to them very cheap financing so that they can do reforms and restructuring.

Speaker 3:

Now, of course, we can say ourselves that we've done a great job, but what I think is more important to look at more independent assessors and because I like to look at more recent publications the Economist, every year at the end of the year in December, comes out with what are the top economies of the world in their economic renaissance.

Speaker 3:

And what to my surprise is is in the last couple of years, it's always these countries that we supported. And if you look at last year so December 2024, it was Greece, portugal, ireland and Cyprus that were in the top rankings and those countries basically did a fantastic turnaround and are now one of the most successful economies, not only in Europe but around the world. So, if you look at, the number one was Greece. So they outperformed in terms of growth and fiscal reforms. They are preparing to repay other loans. Ireland has one of the greatest growth in GDP and Spain is also incredible in the way it did its turnaround and now it's one of the most popular, even tourist, destinations. So those top three countries had a fantastic debt reduction track, boosted their economies and now are truly European and a global success story a truly European and a global success story.

Speaker 2:

You know we're looking at global market dynamics and I think also in our last show, where we had our sister company, 360t, which is a trading platform for Forex Exchange, we talked a lot about the dynamics that have been unleashed since the trade and tariffs that have been unleashed by the Trump administration in the US. So there has been all-time highs in foreign exchange markets. I mean US dollar against the Canadian dollar was at an all-time high, and so there is also talks about the euro, obviously within that global picture, and I think Karlin is the right man to sell Europe and euro in the world. And so my question is around we see and we hear that there's gradual shift from, you know, reserve currencies into euro as an attractive currency. I'm not saying that there's a shift from US dollar reserves into euro reserves, but how is the euro performing as an alternative currency and what impact does this have on ESM strategies?

Speaker 3:

uh, now, excellent question. So when I'm in front of studio the audiences, I often ask them so, um, what was in the 17th century the largest reserve currency in the world? And very few people can guess that and I don't know, andrew christian is it the guilder?

Speaker 1:

is it the the dutch guilder?

Speaker 3:

it is exactly the dutch gilder.

Speaker 1:

So you, you you're performing well, better than many you had some information as it, as it happens, I I wrote a piece some time back about, um the uh, dutch republic and uh, the the emergence of the first stock exchange, of course, in the world, which was uh there, uh, and uh also the alleged tulip bubble, which actually there's very little historical evidence for, and so, as a result, it was quite a controversial view that it might have been something that was made up by a Scotsman who wrote a book about the madness of crowds about 150, 200 years later. So it's a really interesting thing, though, to think that the first Dutch Republic was really the birthplace of the modern stock exchange. So that's how the guess came about, I think you're spot on.

Speaker 3:

Indeed, it was the largest stock exchange in the world with the East India Company, which was not a royal company, but it was really a trader's company globally where you could buy stocks, and therefore theutch gilder was used in world trade and world reserves. Later on, this was uh replaced by the british pound, because the british uh empire was the strongest in the world. And then, only a century ago, the us dollar took that position over, especially as as they turned out to be the winners in the first and second world war. Now why do I say that? It's that currencies come and go. If you look at it on a long period of time and if you now fast forward that to the last 25 years, the US dollar was at the start of this millennium, in 2000, 2001, the largest reserve currency by far. It was around 74% of all the global reserves. Over the last 25 years it steadily has been going down. It's now around 58% and I use IMF and ECB data for that, which is quite similar. And we have seen with the introduction to the euro that the euro is hovering around 20%. So it is by far the second largest reserve currency and over the last few years we have seen new reserve currencies like the renminbi coming up as an alternative to both the euro and the dollar. Now what I find more interesting as you said, this year has been quite a tumultuous year in geopolitics, with Trump coming in, with the trade war, etc. So to see what that means from a currency is that we've seen investors to start thinking about diversification again, and everyone who studies corporate finance diversification is the number one priority you need to have as an investor. So we see that investors are trying to rebalance, shift in, shift out. So what we have seen as trends ourselves is that we have seen a huge increase of participation of central banks in our bonds from all around the world, so a large increase in Asia that is the most remarkable one but also in new places like Latin America, africa and the Middle East. Now we also recently did a US dollar issuance with ESM, which had another interesting dynamic where investors want to have US dollar exposure but don't want US credit, but want European AAA credit. So our dollar deal, which came out in August, was the most oversubscribed dollar deal we ever have done, and we had investors from all over the world but also places like Honduras and Colombia, which we have never seen before. So there we see a kind of a rebalancing and a bit of shift in investor behavior.

Speaker 3:

Another argument which I find very interesting is that there are more and more international players that want to issue in euro. So the ECB has this beautiful report on the role of the euro. It came out just before summer. So there you see countries globally that are issuing the role of the euro. It came out just before summer. So there you see countries globally that are issuing more and more in euro, and of course these are Bulgaria, romania, countries nearby Europe, but also countries like the Philippines, saudi Arabia, chile, indonesia that use the euro as a currency.

Speaker 3:

And they do this basically for three reasons. One is diversification of currency to lower financing costs, because the euro on a 10 year you can get maybe two and a half percent, while with the dollar it's around 5%, so it's cheaper actually to refinance. And the third one is you're actually tapping completely new markets, so you can explain the Chilean story to European investors or global investors. So that is a new trend, which we wrote a blog ourselves on it in May, and then ECB re-emphasized that. So I think that's for everyone who likes markets and looks at new trends. I think that's a key trend to follow.

Speaker 2:

Those who know you and who follow you on social media, I mean know that you also have Bulgarian roots and I think, talking about Bulgaria and the euro accession, I think we'd like to know what is your view from the ASM's perspective and also, how does it change the role of the ASM with the accession and adoption of euro by new member countries?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yes, that's true. I was born in Bulgaria, grew up in the Netherlands, so that's a little bit my personal story. So I'm a citizen of both countries and both of them are very close to my heart. What I find interesting from an ESM perspective is to see the enthusiasm of countries that want to join the euro area. So we spoke about the euro crisis a little bit before and in the depth of the euro crisis, we welcomed three countries Estonia, latvia and Lithuania at this pretty much the same time, in a margin of five years.

Speaker 3:

And when I was in those capitals in Tallinn, riga and Vilnius I did ask, together with my colleagues, like, why are you joining at the moment where we're going through this very difficult period in Europe? And they said well, it's mainly for safety and security. So the reason of joining is to be part of a very integrated, great financial market and even if sometimes it's rough because of crisis, countries wanted to join. Later on we accepted Croatia and now it is the same for Bulgaria. If you look at it from the same perspective, a country like Bulgaria joining is actually great. So you're connecting the euro area also with Greece. You're bringing in a country with a very low debt to GDP level between 25 to 35 percent and a country with high growth levels. So the country is growing faster than other European economies as part of convergence etc. But geopolitically also extremely important because it is bordering turkey. It is bordering romania, serbia, northern macedonia, so bringing in such a country within the the euro area, I think, deepens the the the euro area market. So that would also bring us to 21 countries of the Eurozone. That leaves just six others to get to the 27 that are part of the EU.

Speaker 3:

Now maybe, christian, if you allow me just one more sentence, the enthusiasm about the Euro is even big outside of the EU. So, andrew, you mentioned that I was two weeks ago at the World Economic Forum. I was sitting next to the prime minister of Montenegro and he said well, I would love Montenegro to join the EU by 2028 and immediately the euro area. And why? Because we don't have another currency. So Montenegro adopted immediately the euro as their key currency. So they are, in a way, ready to immediately implement that. So the enthusiasm of this second largest currency in the world is fantastic.

Speaker 1:

Now talking of enthusiasm. If we went back a couple of years, everyone was talking about ESG. Esg was the big topic and you know the early sort of categorization of ESG funds that was taking place in Luxembourg, the assessment of materiality and double materiality, esg we went into it in some depth. Christian, you'll remember, it was one of my favorite topics from a couple of seasons ago. Now, since then, some big, mostly sort of US global players sort of cooled off on ESG and the media narrative kind of died to death a bit. Last year people stopped talking about it and yet the ESM your holdings of ESG labeled bonds has grown substantially. You've added 2.2 billion in 2024, which has been a significant sort of move in the opposite direction. Why is the ESG sort of positioning itself as a leader in sustainability within EU capital markets? What is it that you know that they don't?

Speaker 3:

So the way we approach ESG and ESM is by using our paid-in capital. So we have 80 billion that we received from the 20 countries of the Eurozone that we are not on lending for financial support like we did in the Euro crisis, but we are investing that in high-grade single-A plus issuers, and we have almost 130 different issuers that we invest in and different assets and different currencies. Now, over time, we have seen a real business case to increase our holdings of labeled bonds. So, as you correctly said, in 2024 we added 2.2 billion of additional labeled bonds, bringing it to 7.4 billion in total. So almost eight percent of our entire paid-in capital is invested in labeled bonds.

Speaker 3:

Now what is the reason to do that? First of all, it's just the right thing to do. I think we need to say that. Secondly, financially it is actually very attractive. So if you compare brown bonds to green bonds, there is far more dynamism and far more profitability to gain in the green bond sphere and the labeled bond sphere than in the brown bond sphere. This has to do that. It's a more crowded market. So when issuers go to the market, they want to issue green and social bonds. The list of investors is bigger and therefore, if you have the credibility, like us, to buy in that sphere, you get a good allocation. But then you see the performance of these bonds actually helping you on the long term to increase the profitability of the institution.

Speaker 3:

Now, one thing that comes out in September and that you might have seen is a blog where we are describing what kind of green bonds and social bonds we are issuing. So we see that the investment, for example, is in renewable energy and in clean transportation Some of them were still in the pandemic. Sustainability all the way down to biodiversity all the way down to biodiversity. So we do believe that if you invest in these thematics that will change the world in the next 10, 15, 20 years, there is a logic that they will be outperforming on the long term. The financial academic research points in that direction. I think we're trying to prove that ourselves with these investments, that they are, for us, the right thing to do, but also profitable.

Speaker 1:

Now you've raised the really interesting point there, of course, which is there has been talk of greenwashing, over promising that sometimes sustainability link bonds are just a way of, you know, doing more industrial development in certain parts of the world, and there've been a lot of you know, sort of cynical assessments made. But there's also a lot of discussion about transition finance and I mean, does the ESM have a role to play in transition finance? And you're already taking steps to sort of steer people away from investing in the wrong areas perhaps, but is there more you're planning to do in that space?

Speaker 3:

So in our investments that I mentioned in the 7.4 billion, there are transition bonds. So they are bonds that are trying to move to renewable energy, to energy efficiency, to move away from dirtier initiatives to cleaner initiatives. Because the bonds are issued by sovereigns, often supranational agencies around the world, because we don't invest only in Europe, we also invest in Japan and Canada, just to give the geographical diversity. So the investments that we do with the paid-in capital is also touching upon transition finance and some of the bonds are really transition finance bonds transition finance and some of the both bonds are really transition finance bonds.

Speaker 2:

Yes, so as luxembourg, or native of luxembourg, I mean, I'm obviously very proud that topic of capital markets union, which was launched by jonko junka 14 years ago no, 2014, so more than 10 years ago and so it's coming back to the forefront now with the Savings and Investment Union. And so I mean, karlin, you've been, I think, also attending the World Economic Forum earlier this year in Davos, so the Savings and Investment Union agenda is on the agenda of many, I think, also on the post-trade for some, like Clearstream and also the Deutsche Börse. Our leadership looks at it very closely because there's a lot of things that have to be put in place. So you are also part of the working team on this new plan, so tell us more about the Savings and Investment Union and why these are so critical for Europe's economic future.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. So if you compare Europe to the US, I think Europe's capital market is still underdeveloped, so the majority of European financing still goes through banks. There's a lot of bank lending and for me there is a, I think, always a great example. When I studied 20 years ago in Rotterdam and you would go to an entrepreneurship class, you would be taught oh, you should go to your bank to ask for your investments to start a new company. And I studied in the US, in Philadelphia, at Wharton, and I did a similar class and then was well, if you have a great idea, you go to angel investors and you give them equity and then they will grow your business. So that is a completely different mindset on how capital markets work in the US and in the EU. And that's, you see in the numbers. So still, a lot of financing happens through banks very bank dominated in Europe, and in the US it's equity dominated Now. Also, that means that the risk sharing is different. So in Europe the risks are then put on the balance sheet of banks and if banks are not able to handle them, then governments would need to support these banks, while in the US, if that happens, it is with individual investors. So you actually reduce the risk and the risk sharing is more on the private side than on the public side. So you're absolutely right, christian, it was the commission of Jean-Claude Juncker that launched this and then in 2020, 2021, there was a new group that was set up that took stock after five years. So also your current CEO of Deutsche Börse was on that group. I was also with him, part of that group, and back then we came up with a paper on what we need to change. Now. That paper included 134 recommendations. I mean there is no way one could implement easily in a few years 134 recommendations. I mean there is no way one could implement easily in a few years 134 recommendations. So, part of that, we said okay, what do we as ESM, but also consulting your CEO and others believe is the five game changers? If they can be done, it would boost and help capital markets union, which is now savings and Investment Union, and we drill them down to what we call the 5S model.

Speaker 3:

The first one is around supervision. We need to have some sort of aligned supervision together. Now there are some countries that want common supervisors. There are some countries that are against the common supervisor but are in favor of harmonization. What we are saying is we need to think of a more common approach to, to supervision and and we are a little bit in the middle where there should be one common supervisor or or more harmonization there.

Speaker 3:

The second is we need a deep european safe asset. So there's a second s and um. Back then we had EAB and ESM together around 500 billion in the market, so it was quite negligible. Due to the fact that the European Commission came in with the EU next-gen EU, we now have almost 1.5 trillion of European safe assets in the market. So this is EU EAB, esm and EFSF all trading on EU ISINs and also clearing to CREA stream for a large part, and that creates a real deep asset, because we are now the fifth largest country and the moment we go above 1.6 trillion, we actually will cross Spain and will be the fourth largest country. So that's two will cross Spain and will be the fourth largest country, so that's two. The third one is sustainable finance. So we still believe, back then and also now, that this is a mega trend that will allow, on the long term, to develop a competitive edge. And you're right, andrew, saying well, maybe in the US this is less popular at this moment, but every time I go to Asia, esg is on the top of the agenda. So that is something that on the top of the agenda. So that is something that is still one of the most important investment thesis.

Speaker 3:

The fourth s is securitization. So if you look at securitization in in and the us in europe, it was around 80 percent. So US had 180% Europe in 2008. And then, after the financial crisis in both regions, it went down. And if you look at it now, the US versus Europe, europe is at 7% of where the US sent 7%, so the market didn't come back in Europe, while in the US it came back again.

Speaker 3:

Now. Securitization is great also for banks because you can originate to distribute, so you can indeed bring in mortgages, for example, and then sell them off, or car loans or other instruments, so you reduce the risk in the banks by bringing that to the market. So I think the securitization bit is an important one. And the fifth and last one is what we call SME finance. But it's the whole funnel from angel investment, venture capital, private equity all the way to IPOs. In Europe this is a little bit stuck. There are a few capital markets where it works like. Sweden is a great example where this works very well. Netherlands works decently well, but in the rest of Europe that funnel is not works very well. Netherlands works decently well, but in the rest of europe that funnel is not working very well. So if we create that funnel in a far more professional way, I think this, this can change the capital and markets and and saving expression union.

Speaker 2:

So five simple s's should be easy to implement where does europe stand stand in this world which is more and more polarized and influenced by, you know, the big partners? I mean the US on one side, china on the other side and what does this mean for multilateral institutions like ESM Karim?

Speaker 3:

yeah, that's, uh, that is the topic of 2025, right? Um, the geopolitical world has uh, changed, has received a shock effect, and I think we are all trying to position ourselves in this world, which will be there for the next couple of years. So what? What I see in europe is that we are probably, of all the different power blocks, the most global. So we are friends and will remain friends of the US, because we have a very long common history. Together, we are part of NATO. Together we have the same democratic values, open market values. So, for those that say, oh, europe and the US are diverging, I don't think so.

Speaker 3:

I think those two continents and maybe it's a little bit of transatlanticus in me will remain important power blocks to work together. Similarly to Asia and I think that's where our relationship is growing and strengthening is that the relationship we have with Asia is intensifying. So we do more trade together, we invest more in Asia, asia invests more in Europe, and I think that is an element that we need to keep. And we had, two or three years ago, a meeting with the president of Singapore, tarman, who said well, if there's one continent that is friends of both Asia and America, it's Europe, and Europe has that soft power that is so important to keep these two worlds together.

Speaker 3:

So I think the power of Europe is that we are still open for trade. We still want to collaborate with the rest of the world. We've seen that also with America, suez Dio, etc. Also with Latin America and Africa. But I think we really want to remain open for business in this multilateral world Because, purely looking at this, economically, if the world fragments it's negative for economic growth. Economically, if the world fragments, it's, uh, negative for economic growth. The more we integrate, the more we collaborate is actually positive for economic growth, but also, I think, positive for our global citizens good.

Speaker 1:

Well, on that, I think, very positive note. Uh, we have to come to our crystal ball question now. Uh, we like to ask uh our special guests to look into the future and make some predictions as far ahead as you like. We often say what are we going to be talking about when we invite you back onto the show in season six, this time next year? What do you think the world will look like? What I want to ask you is about the ESM's role in European markets and policymaking. How do you think it's going to evolve? How will the ESM look different a year or maybe two years in the future?

Speaker 3:

So if I took one year from now, I'm thinking of the World Cup, football and who will win that, but that's probably another podcast. But me and my son are big support of the dutch orange team, but, uh, we'll keep that for another. It was a close it's.

Speaker 1:

It's been close run. It's been a close run thing actually.

Speaker 3:

We've done our best right, yes, uh. But now on a more serious uh note, um, if you look at in one year time, uh, the esm is and remains the lender of last resort for europe. So we have seen, as we started this podcast, countries that go through downgrades and difficulty. We've seen countries that need to do more financing in defense and might need funding. What we are there is to give this market confidence that those countries always have access to financial markets. So our lending capacity is 428 billion at the moment. It will be growing because countries are repaying, especially Spain.

Speaker 3:

At a certain moment, they will not be in our support package anymore, so we'll have even more firepower to use. So that's, I think, we're there to support. The second element is that I'm going next year and what is definitely happening is Bulgaria will be the 21st country. So the 1st of January, there will be no LEFs anymore coming out of the ATMs, but it will be Euro. So this is, I think, next year, what will be the biggest changes for us, and we never know how the world looks like. Changes for us, and we never know how the world looks like, but the good thing is we have the stability and we have the cash available and we can be used in any situation.

Speaker 1:

Great. Well, thank you very much for that, and I'm just going to throw this one in here At the risk of provoking a protest outside my house. These days that could happen here in the UK, I'm going to say Holland for the cup there. Okay, I may well have to edit that out or emigrate, depending. Okay, listen on that one. We have really pushed through our time today and I would just like to say, on behalf of everyone here in the virtual studio and Clearstream, a huge thank you. I'm going to hit the right button this time. A huge thank you for Callan Anavionta, who is the Chief Financial Officer, a member of the Management Board for the ESM, the European Stability Mechanism. Callan, thank you very much.

Speaker 3:

Thank you, Andrew. Thank you, Christian. I'm going to use a brush to paint the surface of the glass. I'm going to use a brush to paint the surface of the glass. I'm going to use a brush to paint the surface of the glass. I'm going to use a brush to paint the surface of the glass. I'm going to use a Thank you.

Speaker 1:

So and don't forget, this show is brought to you by clearstream banking, one of the main sponsors of the gff summit in luxembourg every year, and features members of the clearstream team and special guests offering their personal opinions, not the opinions of clearstream as an organization. There's no representation made as to the accuracy or completeness of information in this podcast in order to be taken as any legal, tax or other professional advice. Bye-bye.