AFME
AFME, the Association for Financial Markets in Europe, is the trade association of the banks that work in the wholesale financial markets of Europe. Its more than 150 member firms include the large global and European banks, brokers, law firms and other advisers. According to AFME, its members underwrite around 90 percent of European corporate and sovereign debt and 85 percent of listed equity issuance in Europe.
AFME represents its members toward the EU institutions, the UK government and the supervisors, on topics from capital rules to securitization and the post-trade chain. More than 5,000 people from member firms work in its 16 committees and over 100 working groups, which draft consultation responses, standard documents and industry guidelines. AFME was founded in 2009 and publishes quarterly data reports on European capital markets.
Members and membership levels
AFME offers two membership levels to organizations that are active in the European wholesale financial markets. Full membership is open to banks, which take part in nearly all boards, committees and working groups, and to brokers and corporate finance advisers, whose access covers six committees and selected working groups. Associate membership is meant for law firms, rating agencies, accounting firms, issuers, stock exchanges, trustees, vendors and investors, who join the committees for high yield, securitization and sustainable finance.
Member firms from Germany include Commerzbank and the development bank KfW, as well as Deutsche Bank, which also has a seat on the board. Euronext, the Luxembourg Stock Exchange and the securitization data repository European DataWarehouse are also among the member firms of AFME. Through the Global Financial Markets Association, AFME works with its sister associations SIFMA in the United States and ASIFMA in Asia on questions of global reach.
Board, chair and chief executive
Juan Blasco, head of the global institutional business in corporate and investment banking at BBVA, chairs the board of AFME. The board brings together senior capital markets executives of member banks such as BNP Paribas, HSBC, Société Générale and UniCredit. Mario Muth, global head of platforms sales and fixed income market structure, is the board member from Deutsche Bank.
Adam Farkas is chief executive officer of AFME and a member of the board. The staff team includes managing directors for capital markets, advocacy, research, securitization, sustainable finance, and technology and operations.
Conferences and events
AFME holds more than 15 events a year with over 400 speakers and more than 3,500 attendees from 39 European countries. OPTIC, held in London, is the AFME conference on operations, post trade and technology, with topics such as the move to T+1 settlement, AI in operations and DLT-based market structures.
The European AML Conference of AFME brings supervisors and compliance teams together in Frankfurt, the seat of the EU Anti-Money Laundering Authority, to discuss how the new EU rules work in practice. AFME also hosts the European Government Bond Conference in Brussels, which has run for more than two decades. Global ABS in Barcelona is a partner event of AFME on securitization, and its 2026 edition marked the 30th anniversary of the conference.
Upcoming fintech and finance events in Europe
Securitization data and other reports
The research team of AFME under Julio Suarez, managing director for research, publishes quarterly data reports on European capital markets. Among them is the Securitisation Data Report on the European securitization market, and further quarterly reports cover government bonds, high yield and leveraged loans, ESG finance, prudential data and equity primary markets.
The CMU KPIs report of AFME measures the progress toward the Capital Markets Union with a set of key performance indicators. Its ninth edition reviews the Savings and Investments Union strategy of the European Commission at mid-term. AFME also publishes an annual review and position papers, for example on bank consolidation in Europe.
DLT and digital capital markets
The digital innovation work of AFME covers AI adoption in banks, data sharing, cyber resilience under the Digital Operational Resilience Act and the scaling of distributed ledger technology in capital markets. In April 2026 AFME published a vision for a DLT-based European market architecture, built from asset ledgers that regulated financial institutions operate and that interoperability protocols connect.
The recommendations of that paper include DLT-based central bank money through the Eurosystem initiative Pontes, collateral eligibility for all DLT securities and a permanent EU regime for DLT market infrastructures. AFME had earlier published policy roadmaps for DLT markets in the EU and the UK, and a roadmap for DLT-based bond issuance by sovereigns and public sector agencies. AFME is also involved in the work on the UK digital gilt DIGIT.
Offices in London, Brussels and Frankfurt
AFME works from three offices: Level 10, 20 Churchill Place, London E14 5HJ; Rue de la Loi 82, 1040 Brussels; and c/o Spaces, Große Gallusstraße 16, 60311 Frankfurt am Main. For Germany, Arved Kolle is managing director and also handles the liaison with the European Central Bank and EU-UK relations. Jan Emig is manager for German advocacy in the staff team of AFME.
AFME and Finance Loop
Finance Loop members at banks, asset managers and market infrastructures work on the files that AFME raises with policy makers, from the move to T+1 in securities processing to DLT-based bonds and the new EU rules against money laundering. Finance Loop discusses these questions at its events in the Investment & Digital Assets track.
Finance Loop is a professional network and has the goal of driving the institutional use of emerging technologies in finance, such as AI, tokenization, stablecoins, and DeFi. Finance Loop helps its members build skills and personal networks in these fields: Investment & Digital Assets, Payments & Digital Money, Digital Infrastructure & Sovereignty, and Risk & Compliance.