What happens when a (Internation) Central securities depository goes bankrupt?
There is no generic answer and it would depend on case to case basis.  CSD are built on strong foundation in the sense they would have very low cost base and generally would not go bankrupt.  However if such a situation as CSD provide an essential role, the regulator, central bank and Government would all step in to prevent a total collapse. They would be forced merged with other entity or more capital raised or put under watch by Govt appointed trustee to settle issues so that there is least or No impact.
"If I really understood it, you bet that a quote/currency/stock market/anything will rise or fall within a period of time.    So, what is the relationship with trading ? I see no trading at all since I don't buy or sell quotes. You are not betting as in ""betting on the outcome of an horse race"" where the money of the participants is redistributed to the winners of the bet. You are betting on the price movement of a security. To do that you have to buy/sell the option that will give you the profit or the loss. In your case, you would be buying or selling an option, which is a financial contract. That's trading. Then, since anyone should have the same technic (call when a currency rises and put when it falls)[...] How can you know what will be the future rate of exchange of currencies? It's not because the price went up for the last minutes/hours/days/months/years that it will continue like that. Because of that everyone won't have the same strategy. Also, not everyone is using currencies to speculate, there are firms with real needs that affect the market too, like importers and exporters, they will use financial products to protect themselves from Forex rates, not to make profits from them. [...] how the brokers (websites) can make money ? The broker (or bank) will either: I'm really afraid to bet because I think that they can bankrupt at any time! Are my fears correct ? There is always a probability that a company can go bankrupt. But that's can be very low probability. Brokers are usually not taking risks and are just being intermediaries in financial transactions (but sometime their computer systems have troubles.....), thanks to that, they are not likely to go bankrupt you after you buy your option. Also, they are regulated to insure that they are solid. Last thing, if you fear losing money, don't trade. If you do trade, only play with money you can afford to lose as you are likely to lose some (maybe all) money in the process." I think your approach of looking exclusively at USD deposits is a prudent one. Here are my responses to your questions. 1) It is highly unlikely that a USD deposit abroad be converted to local currency upon withdrawal. The reason for offering a deposit in a particular currency in the first place is that the bank wants to attract funds in this currency. 2) Interest rate is a function of various risks mostly supply and demand, central bank policy, perceived risk etc. In recent years low-interest rate policy as led by U.S., European and Japanese central banks has led particularly low yields in certain countries disregarding their level of risk, which can vary substantially (thus e.g. Eastern Europe has very low yields at the moment in spite of its perceived higher risk). Some countries offer depository insurance.  3) I would focus on banks which are among the largest in the country and boast good corporate governance i.e. their ownership is clean and transparent and they are true to their business purpose. Thus, ownership is key, then come financials. Country depository insurance, low external threat (low war risk) is also important. Most banks require a personal visit in order to open the account, thus I wouldn't split much further than 2-3 banks, assuming these are good quality. "If I buy the one from NSY, is it the ""real"" Sinopec? No - you are buying an American Depository Receipt. Essentially some American bank or other entity holds a bunch of Sinopec stock and issues certificates to the American exchange that American investors can trade.  This insulates the American investors from the cost of international transactions.   The price of these ADRs should mimic the price of the underlying stock (including changes the currency exchange rate) otherwise an arbitrage opportunity would exist.  Other than that, the main difference between holding the ADR and the actual stock is that ADRs do not have voting rights. So if that is not important to you then for all intents and purposes trading the ADR would be the same as trading the underlying stock." "Members of the Federal Reserve System keep track of what money a bank has (if it's not in the vault), who owns what shares of stock, who owns what bond, etc. The part of the Federal Reserve System that tracks stock ownership is the Depository Trust Company (DTC). They have a group of subsidiaries that settle various types of security transactions. DTC is a member of the U.S. Federal Reserve System, a limited-purpose   trust company under New York State banking law and a registered   clearing agency with the Securities and Exchange Commission. There's lots of information on their website describing this process. DTCC's subsidiary, The Depository Trust Company (DTC), established in   1973, was created to reduce costs and provide clearing and settlement   efficiencies by immobilizing securities and making ""book-entry""   changes to ownership of the securities. DTC provides securities   movements for NSCC's net settlements1, and settlement for institutional   trades (which typically involve money and securities transfers between   custodian banks and broker/dealers), as well as money market   instruments. Black pools are trades done where the price is not shared with the market. But the DTC is the one who keeps track of who owns which shares. They have records of all net transactions2. The DTC is the counterparty for transactions. When stock moves from one entity to another the DTC is involved. As the central counterparty for the nation's major exchanges and   markets, DTCC clears and settles virtually all broker-to-broker equity 1. This is the link that shows that settlements are reported on a ""net basis"". 2. If broker A sells 1000 shares of something to broker B at 8 and then five minutes later broker B sells the 1000 shares back to A, you cannot be sure that that total volume will be recorded. No net trading took place and there would be fees to pay for no reason if they reported both trades. Note: In dark pool trading quite often the two parties don't know each other. For shares (book-keeping records) to be exchanged it has to be done through a Clearing House." In the United States, the Securities Investor Protection Corporation protects the first $500,000 you have at a brokerage including up to $250,000 in cash. This means that if the firm holding your securities fails financially, you have some coverage. That insurance does not prevent your investment itself from losing money. Even traditionally save money market funds can potentially lose value in a situation called Breaking the buck. This means that the Net Asset Value of the fund falls below $1/share. Alas, during periods of market calamity, even traditionally safe stores of value are subject to increased risk. So, couple of things. Firstly, every international ETF includes risk disclosure language in the prospectus covering both market disruption events as well as geopolitical risk, so the sponsor would be pretty well insulated from direct liability for anything. If the Russian market were truly shut down there are true-up mechanisms in place but in the scenario you're describing the market is still open, it's just only a few participants can trade in it.  First thing to do is shut down creates- that is, allow no new money to come into the fund. This at least prevents your problem from getting bigger.   Second you're going to switch all redemptions to in kind only. MV itself can't trade in the underlying so they're kind of jammed here. An ETF sponsor can't really refuse your redemption request (can delay, but only for a short time), but they can control the form in which they respond to it.    What theoretically should happen here is an AP not subject to sanctions will step in and handle redemptions.  Issue is, they'll probably charge for this so you should expect the fund to start trading at a discount to NAV (you, as an investor, sell to them cheaply, they submit a redemption request, then sell the stocks locally). Someone else has pointed that market makers will start stat arbing the fund using correlated/substitute instruments, which totally will help keep things in line, but my guess is that you'd still see the name trading away from NAV regardless. Driver of this will be the amount of money desperate to get out - if investors are content to wait the sanctions out who knows. It HAS to end in the dissolution of Equifax. There was an explicit chain of trust. If either party breaks that chain they lose their standing.   Consumers know what happens when they commit to actions to lose their credit rating.   Equifax needs to answer to the same standards. It would be very bad for the global economy. China trade partners would suffer too. It would probably play out as an uncontrolled domino-effect of bankruptcies, runs on the banks, then banks go under, then social unrest, then we profit enormously when things are at their very worst.