Internationale Kapitalmärkte — Strukturen und Systeme der Zukunft

Summary

While analysing the developments and the international capital markets of the 20th century, some important and interdependent issues are discussed, e.g. explosive growth of transaction volumes, deregulation, centralisation, growth in derivatives, securitisation, internationalisation, and privatisation. Still the expectation of many market participants that globalisation will lead to a merger of individual capital markets while geographic differences become irrelevant have not been met. Despite growing internationalisation, the “home markets” will continue to be the relevant ones for many products and instruments, as only these markets provide maximum liquidity.

Competitive pressures force the individual capital markets to adjust to these new trends. By systematic and structural changes they try to satisfy the request for efficiency, liquidity, and the security of institutional investors, issuers, and intermediaries world-wide.

The innovative power of market participants and regulative authorities of the individual capital markets will be crucial. Their ability to develop new products, to implement efficient regulative procedures, to adopt international standards, and to overcome the division of market segments will prove to be decisive in bearing the growing competition. The significance of institutional investors grows continuously, resulting in a stronger division of international capital markets in wholesale and retail segments and a division in exchange and off-the-exchange trading. Different principles and trading platforms are going to be the battlefields of competition.

Countless new impulses will be given by the EMU. Along with individual currencies, exchange rate risks will be abolished, barriers to market entry will be torn down, and competition will intensify. The unified European capital market will benefit from enlargement and improved liquidity.