How ETFs changed the way Europe invests

The story of ETFs is also the story of how investing has evolved over the past 25 years. As markets became more transparent, investors more cost-concious and portfolios more sophisticated, ETFs both responded to and helped drive those changes.

Twenty-five years ago, the European ETF market was still in its infancy. Few could have predicted how quickly this once-niche investment tool would reshape the way investors access markets, build portfolios andmanage risk.

According to LSEG, the European ETF market today is worth €2.6tn. Its growth reflects more than the success of a product category. It also tells a wider story about how investing has changed: becoming more transparent, more cost-conscious and more focused on outcomes.

The origins of a market shift

The foundations had been laid in the US in 1993, when State Street launched the first US-listed ETF – tracking the S&P 500. It offered investors something new at the time: diversified market exposure through a single trade, combined with the flexibility of intra-day stock exchange trading. For market participants, it also provided an efficient way to hedge a broad basket of stocks through a single tradable product, supporting greater liquidity and faster market responsiveness.

When ETFs arrived in Europe seven years later, adoption was initially driven by institutional investors seeking efficient market exposure. Over time, ETFs gained a broader following as the range of available strategies expanded across regions, sectors and asset classes. Their rise came at a time when investors were placing greater emphasis on transparency, costs and portfolio construction, and ETFs were well positioned to meet those changing needs.

Why ETFs met the moment

Transparency has been a key factor in the success of ETFs. Because ETFs typically disclose their holdings on a daily basis, investors can see what they own, the exposures they are buying and how the fund is constructed. This marked a different experience from relying on a fund manager’s stock-picking decisions with less frequent, often delayed, transparency. It gave investors greater clarity over how an ETF could be used within a portfolio and the role it was intended to play.

Costs also came under greater scrutiny. As access to investment information increased and competition intensified, investors became more aware of the fees they were paying and the impact those costs could have on long-term returns. For many broad market exposures, ETFs offered a relatively low-cost route compared with the wider universe of mutual funds, while still providing access to diversified market exposure. This helped make them an attractive option for both institutional and retail investors.

The advice industry was changing too. Across many markets, commission-based distribution gradually gave way to fee-based advice, placing greater emphasis on cost efficiency and long-term value. ETFs answered those needs, and adoption among advisers gathered pace. Having first emerged in the UK through the Retail Distribution Review, this trend has since gained momentum across Europe and further supported the use of ETFs in investor portfolios.

Portfolio construction was also evolving. Investors and advisers were focusing not only on selecting individual securities or managers, but on how different asset classes worked together to achieve a desired outcome. ETFs made it easier to build diversified portfolios across regions, sectors and asset classes, giving advisers flexible building blocks that could be combined in different ways to meet client objectives.

From access to acceleration: how ETFs helped modernise markets

The growth of ETFs coincided with significant changes in the way markets themselves functioned. Over the past 25 years, investing in Europe, and globally, has become easier, faster, more transparent and more accessible. ETFs benefited from these developments, but they also helped accelerate them.

Access is perhaps the clearest example. In the early 2000s, building a diversified portfolio across Europe often required multiple funds, managers and market-specific solutions. Today, a relatively small number of ETFs can provide exposure to a broad range of countries, sectors and asset classes. That has made diversification easier to implement and broadened access to investment opportunities both within Europe and beyond.

ETFs also helped make bond investing easier to access and more transparent. By bringing exposure to an underlying over-the-counter market into a single building block that trades like an equity, they helped investors navigate a market that was changing rapidly. This was particularly important after the global financial crisis, as banks moved further away from holding large bond inventories on their balance sheets and played more of an intermediary role. At the same time, the bond market became increasingly electronic, supporting improvements in liquidity and price transparency.

A broader investor base

This widening of access has gone hand in hand with broader market participation. As investment information became more widely available and digital platforms reduced barriers to entry, more individual investors gained direct access to financial markets. EU households invested €258bn into investment funds in 2024, the second-highest annual level on record, according to the European Fund and Asset Management Association.

ETFs have supported this shift by providing a scalable and relatively low-cost way to access diversified exposures across asset classes and geographies. In doing so, they helped narrow the gap between institutional and retail investing, making portfolio-building techniques once associated primarily with professional investors available to a much wider audience.

More choice, more sophisticated uses

As adoption broadened, the range of exposures available through ETFs expanded as well. State Street helped extend the European market's fixed income toolkit with the launch of an emerging market local currency debt ETF in 2011 and a global convertible bond ETF in 2014. As investor needs became more sophisticated, ETFs moved beyond their original role as simple index-tracking vehicles and became tools for implementing a much wider range of portfolio views.

Trading through change

Trading practices were changing at the same time. Over the last quarter of a century, electronic execution became more widespread, market information more readily available and pricing more transparent. Unlike traditional mutual funds, which are typically priced once a day, ETFs could be bought and sold throughout the trading day on an exchange, giving investors greater flexibility and transparency over how and when they accessed markets.

That shift also changed how ETFs were used within the wider market. What began as an investment vehicle gradually became part of the market infrastructure itself, supported by a network of exchanges, market makers and authorised participants. ETF prices may provide a real-time indication of investor sentiment, which became particularly valuable during periods of market stress, especially in fixed income markets where underlying securities may trade less frequently.

What comes next

Few firms have had a longer vantage point on the evolution of ETFs than State Street.

The launch of the first US-listed ETF in 1993 helped lay the foundations for what would become a global industry. State Street's involvement in Europe since the early years of the market has also provided a front-row seat to many of the changes that have shaped modern investing.

Looking ahead, the ETF market's next phase is likely to be shaped by the same themes that have driven its growth so far: access, transparency, innovation and investor choice. The tools may continue to evolve, but the underlying direction is clear. ETFs have changed how investors think about markets, and their role in portfolio construction is likely to keep expanding.

Learn more about the past (and next) 25 years of State Street ETFs in Europe.