After two years of shrinking, the world’s market for securities lending enjoyed a good comeback in 2021, according to numbers from specialist market data provider DataLend.

Revenues of 9.3 billion USD were generated for lenders across the global securities lending industry last year – a step up by 21 percent since a year earlier. Growth was biggest in the APAC region, at 30 percent, while the Americas market added 22 percent but the EMEA region only 1 percent.

The numbers are published by DataLend, the market data arm of EquiLend, which is a market platform operator in the niche.

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Broker-to-broker activity produced another 2.8 billion USD in revenue, down 2 percent since 2020.

The total revenues of 2021 were also above those of 2019, by 7 percent, yet still smaller than those of 2018 when they were at just under 10 billion dollars.

“Securities lending revenue is calculated as the amount paid by borrowers, typically broker-dealers on behalf of their hedge fund clients, to temporarily borrow equity and fixed income securities from long-holders of these assets, known as beneficial owners,” writes DataLend.