On , the Belgian branch of
Morgan Guaranty Trust Company launched a pilot securities settlement service for the Brussels eurobond market, the forerunner of the Euroclear System. On , this was formally marketed as
Euro-clear, marking the birth of the first ICSD.
Kidder Peabody had been the first major trading firm to tell the market that it would only deal with firms that cleared through Euroclear. Euroclear's creation provoked a reaction in Luxembourg among firms which competed with Morgan and feared that Morgan could use their settlement data to its trading advantage. This led to the launch of a competitor, Luxembourg-based
Cedel, in September 1970. On , Euro-clear Clearance System Ltd, a non-resident English company domiciled in Switzerland, was founded by shareholders including over 120 major financial institutions. On , Euro-clear Clearance System Ltd purchased the Euroclear System from Morgan, which however kept operating it. In June 1983, Euroclear introduced computerized securities lending and borrowing. On , Euroclear's legal construct was complemented with the creation of Euro-clear Clearance System Société Coopérative in Brussels. On , the system's operation was transferred from Morgan to the newly created Euroclear Bank. On , Euroclear Clearance System, the parent entity of Euroclear Bank, changed its name to Euroclear plc. Euroclear took a 20% stake in the capital of
LCH.Clearnet, by then an Anglo-French entity responsible for the clearing of stock trades on
Euronext and the
London Stock Exchange. Euroclear then engaged in a series of acquisitions of national CSDs. It acquired France's
Sicovam in 2001, then the Netherlands'
Necigef and the UK's
CRESTCo in 2002. These local CSDs were renamed respectively as
Euroclear France,
Euroclear Nederland, and
Euroclear UK & Ireland. On , a new Belgian intermediate holding company, Euroclear SA/NV, was created as the owner of Euroclear Bank, the Euroclear national CSDs, and the shared technology and services supplied to them. In 2006 Euroclear completed the long-planned acquisition of Belgium's
CIK, then in October 2008 purchased the Nordic Central Securities Depository comprising Finland's APK (Suomen Arvopaperikeskus Oy) and Sweden's VPC (Värdepapperscentralen AB), which had merged in 2004; the respective entities were renamed
Euroclear Belgium,
Euroclear Finland, and
Euroclear Sweden. In July 2004, Euroclear also announced it would create a single technical platform known as ESES (for "Euroclear Settlement of Euronext-zone Securities"). The ESES project was implemented in 2007-2009, bringing together its three CSDs in Belgium, France and the Netherlands, all of which serve securities traded on
Euronext. In May 2013, Euroclear and the US
Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) offered access to each other’s vast inventory of collaterals. While the initial offering provided a two-way automatic transfer and retention of collaterals, it was intended to evolve as a single pool of depositories. In April 2014, Euroclear linked its system to the Central Latinoamericana de Valores to open
Panama to international investors, thus creating a single pool of liquidity. In February 2015, Mexico opened up its corporate bonds to Euroclear's trading platform, hoping it will facilitate and increase raising funds for its development programs. In 2016, the three ESES CSDs were connected with the
Eurosystem's
TARGET2-Securities (T2S) securities settlement system. Euroclear entered the market of funds (including
exchange-traded fund and
private market assets launching FundsPlace also thanks to the acquisition of MFEX in 2021 and Goji in 2023. In 2021 as another consequence of
Brexit, the depository role for Irish securities was transferred from Euroclear UK & Ireland to Euroclear Bank, following which the former CSD was renamed Euroclear UK & International. On , Euroclear simplified its group structure. Until then, Euroclear Holding SA/NV had owned the Euroclear group entities via several intermediate holding companies: Euroclear AG in
Baar, Switzerland, which in turn owned Euroclear Investments SA in Belgium, which in turn owned Euroclear SA/NV in Belgium, which in turn owned Euroclear Bank and Euroclear's national CSDs. As part of the legal restructuring, both Euroclear AG and Euroclear Investments SA were merged into Euroclear Holding SA/NV. On 1 february 2025, Euroclear Bank announced that it has received approval for a branch licence in Singapore. The Singapore Euroclear Bank branch will replace the previous Representative office status.
Frozen Russian central bank reserves Euroclear Bank has been under the spotlight since late February 2022 because it is where most of the reserves of the
Bank of Russia are deposited, that were immobilized in the context of
international sanctions during the Russo-Ukrainian War. Euroclear holds about 200 billion of Russian central bank reserves. In March 2025, Euroclear was authorised by Belgium, its principal legal authority, to make payouts from the frozen assets. In 2024, interest from investing the frozen Russian funds came to €4 billion, which was earmarked to fund a
G7 loan to Ukraine. , according to
Reuters, of €185 billion held by Euroclear, about €176 billion of the Russian assets have turned into cash and the remaining €9 billion worth of securities are set to mature in 2026 and 2027.{{cite news |work=Reuters |url=https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/how-will-west-use-russias-frozen-assets-2025-10-02/ |title=Explainer: How will the West use Russia's frozen assets? ==Operations==