Euroclear Bank S.A./N.V.

The stable outlook reflects our view that Euroclear group's creditworthiness will remain resilient. We expect that the group will maintain a leading position in securities settlement and post-trade activities, combined with satisfactory profitability and a favorable capital structure, with our risk-adjusted capital (RAC) ratio projection likely to remain above 15%. We could lower the ratings in the coming 12-24 months if there is an unexpected deterioration in the group's very strong market position or an increase in its debt-risk appetite that would push Euroclear's debt to EBITDA beyond 2.5x. We could also lower the rating on Euroclear Bank if we changed our view of its core status to the wider group, but we consider this risk to be remote. We

...Euroclear remains one of the world's largest providers of domestic and cross-border settlements services. Euroclear held assets under custody of 37.6 trillion as of Dec. 31, 2021, having grown by a strong 15% since 2020. In 2021, the group also processed 295 million netted transactions (up 7% since 2020), which in euro equivalent terms is worth almost 1 quadrillion. While we watch developments in the area of decentralized finance, for now we see no significant risk that this will undermine Euroclear's role as a critical operator of national and international central securities depositories (CSDs) and provider of ancillary post-trade and financing services. We expect Euroclear's leverage to remain stable following a modest rise in 2022 that reflected a normalization of business volumes following the 2020-2021 highs and increased leverage from the MFEX acquisition. We anticipate leverage, measured as S&P Global Ratings-adjusted debt to EBITDA, to peak at just under 2.0x at end-2022 and funds...

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