abstract:Sicovam, an acronym for Société Interprofessionnelle pour la Compensation des Valeurs Mobilières, is both a security identifier system used to identify French securities listed on French stock exchanges, as well as the company set up to assign them. Sicovam was merged into the European-wide Euroclear and as of July 1, 2003 SICOVAMs are no longer issued, ISINs being used instead.
And after merging its clearing unit with Cedel last year, it hopes that Clearstream, the new entity, will become Europe's clearing house of choice, though it still faces competition from Euroclear, which last week leapt into bed with Sicovam, France's settlement system.