Clearstream D7

Clearstream D7 is a platform on which an issuer, its paying agent and Clearstream create, record and service a security without a paper certificate. A classic German issue needs a global note that is signed and deposited in the vault of the central securities depository, and every later change to the terms means a new document. On D7 the terms go in as data, and the security exists as an entry in a register kept by Clearstream.

Most issues on D7 are retail structured products, the certificates and warrants that German banks launch every trading day, and D7 Digital processes these products for the German market. Bonds and commercial paper from the debt capital market run on the same platform, and Clearstream plans digital shares, or e-shares, for the second half of 2026.

D7 DLT adds a distributed ledger to the platform, so that a security is issued as a token and can settle against a payment on the same or a connected ledger. Clearstream used D7 DLT as a DLT operator in the 2024 trials of the Eurosystem on settlement in central bank money, with tokenized commercial paper and intraday repo transactions, and planned its first DLT issues of Eurobond instruments for the fourth quarter of 2025.

Since 24 June 2026, securities issued on D7 DLT are eligible as collateral in the Eurosystem Collateral Management System (ECMS), so banks can pledge them in credit operations with the central bank. At the time of the announcement Clearstream described itself as the only triparty agent connected to ECMS.

D7 belongs to the post-trade division of Deutsche Börse Group, which also runs the Eurex derivatives exchange and the 360T currency venue. On 11 June 2026 Clearstream announced a next-generation digital securities infrastructure for traditional and tokenized securities, a hybrid platform whose components go live in stages across 2026 and 2027, subject to regulatory approval.

Stephanie Eckermann, member of the Executive Board of Deutsche Börse Group and chair of Clearstream, called the new infrastructure "Europe's first digital securities infrastructure serving clients globally". The platform covers issuance, custody and financing for assets under both MiFID and MiCA, with D7 as its issuance layer.

KfW, the German development bank, was the first issuer on D7: in December 2022 it issued a two-year bond of 20 million euros with a coupon of 2.381 percent as a central register security under the Electronic Securities Act. The lead manager of that pilot deal was Deutsche Bank, and Hengeler Mueller advised on the law.

With a value date of 2 July 2024, KfW followed with its first benchmark bond on D7, 4 billion euros with a three-year maturity and a coupon of 2.75 percent. The treasurer of KfW said at the time that digital processes cut the time to market of a digital security from minutes to seconds.

In the exploratory work of the Eurosystem from May to November 2024, D7 carried several transactions that the Bundesbank trigger solution settled in central bank money. On 25 October 2024 Clearstream Banking AG, L-Bank and NatWest Markets settled commercial paper on the D7 platform, and on 13 November 2024 the European Investment Bank, LuxCSD, Spuerkeess and NatWest Markets tested a digital issue in the D7 test environment.

Clearstream is also one of the first DLT operators for Pontes, the Eurosystem service for settling DLT transactions in central bank money that launched on 21 September 2026. The other operators named in August 2026 are Axiology, Cashlink and SWIAT, as Ledger Insights reported at the time.