Turnover on EuroMTS, the pan-European platform for trading eurozone government bonds, has fallen sharply since Citigroup shook the market by selling €11bn of debt in less than two minutes in August. The US bank's actions severely disrupted the market and raised questions about its structure.

Volumes for the past three months are down about 30 per cent from the same period last year, while numbers for October show a 36 per cent drop from the same month in 2003. However, MTS remains the dominant trading operator in the eurozone, controlling about 50 per cent of the market.