Steven Maijoor, Chair, European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) opened the 2018 WFE Annual Meeting in Athens with this key note speech.

Following his participation in the 'renewal, rebuilding and rebirth of economies' panel at the recent 58th WFE GA&AM in Athens, Jan Boomaars, CEO, Optiver, writes about the dramatic increase of systematic internalisation and strict capital requirements that are creating an environment that threatens efficient markets in Europe.

Daniel Leon, Head of MACS Engineering and Execution, AXA IM gives the buy side perspective, and calls for a collective approach to prepare for the next crisis.

On the second day of the WFE's recent Annual Meeting in Athens, Samara Cohen, Head of iShares Global Markets, BlackRock gave a fascinating presentation on the ETF market, and traced trading and markets back through time to the use of clay tokens in 3500 BC. Samara summarises that presentation in this month's Focus.

The WFE took a very active role in the recent UNCTAD World Investment Forum in Geneva, with WFE CEO Nandini Sukumar speaking at the event's Grand Opening, moderating the SSE Global Dialogue, and also a participant on the WFE/UNCTAD panel on sustainability, commodities and derivatives.

For the third time, female leaders came together, this time in Amsterdam, to share their experiences with aspiring future leaders of the industry.

At the opening of the WFE Annual Meeting in Athens on Wednesday 3 October, the WFE showed its latest video, entitled 'Markets in Renewal'.

On Wednesday 3 October 2018, at the 58th General Assembly in Athens, the WFE admitted six new members taking the total number of full members to 70, an historic high. With six members joining since the last General Assembly in 2017, the WFE now represents more than 200 market infrastructure providers.

The WFE has published a report (together with a supplementary dataset) entitled 'An overview of WFE SME markets', examining the current status of 33 SME markets across 29 WFE member exchanges.