Colourful though this may be, it is a lot less important than what will happen if Lussi does depart, for Clearstream is half-owned by Deutsche Börse. There was a time last year during the merger talks with the London Stock Exchange when it looked as if a restructuring of the European securities infrastructure might take place on horizontal lines, with the trading platforms getting together, then the clearing houses, then the settlement organisations. This is what the big investment banks represented in the European Securities Forum have been pressing for.