The euro-area repo market: structure, participants and interlinkages

11 May 2026

Banca d'Italia today publishes 'The euro-area repo market: structure, participants and interlinkages', the new issue of the series 'Markets, infrastructures, payment systems'.

This paper investigates the structure of the euro-area repo market and the role of its key participants, with a focus on primary dealers, drawing on granular data collected under the Securities Financing Transactions Regulation. We document structural features of the market. Outstanding volumes are almost evenly split between centrally cleared and non-centrally cleared segments, which differ markedly in participant composition, maturity structure, and trade characteristics. Within the non-centrally cleared segment - less explored yet systemically relevant - we identify a stable core-periphery network where primary dealers act as central nodes, connecting peripheral entities, such as non-bank financial institutions and non-dealer banks. Primary dealers play a structurally important role in safeguarding the proper market functioning: they channel liquidity from cash-rich agents to those in need of funding, thereby performing a crucial function in the redistribution of liquidity within the system, particularly during phases of reserve rebalancing.