Roughly speaking, the financial system can be subdivided into three main components: financial markets, financial intermediaries and the financial market infrastructure.
The primary task of the financial markets is to gather information and process it in the form of prices, which allow financial market participants to allocate resources and risks efficiently.
Financial intermediaries are market participants themselves. At the same time, they also play an important role in bringing the other market participants together – in other words, they match supply and demand in the various market segments. In order to fulfil these tasks efficiently, financial markets and intermediaries depend on an adequate financial market infrastructure. Particularly important are stock exchanges and trading platforms, as well as post-trading systems for clearing and settling payments, securities and other financial instruments (payment and securities settlement systems). The task of payment and securities settlement systems is to correctly transfer and record the financial assets (e.g. book money, securities and other financial instruments) traded between the parties and to do so at the time agreed.
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Report "Behind the scenes of financial markets: A look at the Swiss financial market infrastructure"
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