European markets trading normally through Microsoft outage

Europe’s main derivatives exchanges and clearing houses continued to operate as normal on Friday as the aftershocks of the Microsoft outage reverberated around the world.

UK-based ICE Futures Europe and the London Metal Exchange said they were trading as normal on Friday while the LSE Group, which operates the LCH clearing house, said its Regulatory News Service had been affected but it was otherwise operating normally.

A spokesman for Deutsche Boerse, which operates Europe’s largest derivatives market Eurex, said the German group was unaffected and “running normally”.

ICE said: “We are aware of the issue and markets are fully operational. We are in close dialogue with our customers on whether and how they’re impacted.”

A spokeswoman for the metal exchange said: “The LME’s systems are currently all functioning normally and we are working with our users to minimise any impact for affected firms. We will continue to monitor all our systems closely.”

The LSE Group, which includes the Refinitiv data and analytics business, issued a statement on its website on Friday morning: "RNS news service is currently experiencing a third party global technical issue, preventing news from being published on www.londonstockexchange.com. Technical teams are working to restore the service. Other services across the Group, including London Stock Exchange, continue to operate as normal."

A spokesman for Euronext said: "We are aware of the current Microsoft outage. It is not impacting trading across our venues, and we are closely monitoring the situation."

The Bank of England issued a statement on its website on Friday morning: “We are monitoring the situation closely and continuing to engage with firms and other authorities. There is no impact on the Bank's systems.”

A London-based broker contacted by FOW said it was experiencing some issues with third-party technology and its messaging platform but was otherwise trading normally.

Operational resilience has been a key focus for the global derivatives industry after ION Markets, a key technology provider to banks and brokers, was subjected to a cyber-attack in January last year.

Some 42 banks and brokers in Europe, the US and Asia were left unable to process client orders for weeks as a result of the ION attack.

The Futures Industry Association, the lobby group, issued on Thursday a paper titled Best Practices for Automated Trading Risk Controls and System Safeguards designed to ensure that markets continue to operate safely.

The UK Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) cited in April new operational resilience and cyber security rules as a priority for this year ahead of implementation in early 2025.