Asset safety

Asset safety is a top issue for Clearstream and our customers. We have strict policies and practices in place, spanning all areas of our business, to keep our customers' assets as safe and secure as possible.

Clearstream’s account protection policy triangle serves to keep your assets as safe as possible

To achieve asset safety at Clearstream, all our customers’ assets are subject to the following safekeeping features, which we refer to as our asset protection policy triangle:

  1. The legal jurisdiction which governs Clearstream’s business (as regulated by respective local regulators in Luxembourg and Germany).
  2. Contractual rights and obligations as set out in Clearstream General Terms and Conditions.
  3. The legal environment under which the securities are held in the local market. This is complemented by our robust due diligence approach to doing business with our local custody chain partners, our global review, through local legal opinions in each market where we hold assets, and the segregation of Clearstream’s assets from those of our customers.


Our key asset safety benefits include the legal environment in which we operate, which offers you, as customers, specific proprietary rights ("Jus in Rem") entitling you to claim your securities or equivalent securities deposited with Clearstream in the unlikely event of a Clearstream bankruptcy.

Further Clearstream asset safety features include our strict due diligence approach and practices across our custody chains; our low-risk business profile and AA risk ratings; rigorous cyber security and business continuity management and our advanced operational risk management approach.

Learn more about how we keep customers' assets as safe as possible in our attached briefing brochure, "Your asset safety solution: A briefing paper on how we protect customers' assets" and 3-part video interview series, "Asset safety in 3 minutes".

To read more about asset safety in our Investment Fund Services, see our Vestima - asset safety briefing.

Customers may also benefit from the information we publish - including for regulatory reporting purposes - about our regulatory environment and custody chain, which can be used for customers' own due diligence regarding our business.