I’d like to extend my thanks to Marc, the Executive Management Committee and the broader CLS team for their dedication and resilience throughout 2020, and for ensuring we remain focused on delivering our strategy. As Marc’s first full year, this has been an immensely challenging time to lead the organization, but he has successfully steered CLS through this period and is well placed to deliver the next phase of our evolution. Marc brings a sense of purpose to the organization, which has resonated with clients, regulators, employees and the CLS Board.

As the pandemic, climate change and geopolitical instability have swept the globe, people are looking increasingly for organizations to step up and help address challenges in partnership with governments and the public. We have something of a head start in this respect – as a global FMI we have long recognized that CLS is purpose-driven. Our role is not to just serve shareholders, but employees, communities and the broader FX ecosystem.

This has led to much discussion at the CLS Board level. A key area of focus during 2020 was to define – in partnership with the Executive Management Committee, Communications & Marketing, client-facing teams and the broader leadership population – a purpose statement that reaffirms our commitment to the markets we serve. The statement, “strengthening resilience and efficiency in the FX ecosystem through global oversight and mutual ownership”, underpins our existence and acts as the guiding principle for how we operate. Our focus in 2021 will be to reinforce that position, not only delivering the high-quality service and market stability our clients expect, but also implementing our environmental, social and governance (ESG) program, demonstrating our sense of corporate citizenship in everything we do.

We also completed a comprehensive review and implementation of a revised corporate structure, which now more closely aligns to the long-term corporate strategy and overriding principle of protecting CLSSettlement. I have referred to these changes in previous reports and following approval by the Board and regulators, they came into effect on 1 January 2021. This new structure – with ‘product companies’ that provide settlement, processing and data products, ‘asset companies’ that own and manage intangible assets, and ‘service companies’ that provide support services to other CLS companies – is a pragmatic evolution that leverages existing structures while clearly separating settlement, processing and data activities within the CLS group of companies. It will also enhance financial transparency of CLS’s products and services through their lifecycles. You will see these changes in reporting reflected in future annual reports.