The vast majority of banks declare themselves ready for the pan-European settlement platform TARGET2-Securities (T2S). This is the finding of a study conducted by Accenture together with Clearstream. The survey examined, among other topics, firms’ specific T2S strategies, and their confidence in their T2S readiness as well as that of their partners, their plans to connect to the platform, and which areas of their organization are most affected by the new settlement engine.
Key survey findings include:
- 90 percent of banks declare themselves ready and well prepared for T2S, and are confident in their overall operational strategy.
- Although there is a plurality of access models in discussion, the study finds an emerging trend towards approaches based on single or few points of access at the infrastructure level for both cash and securities.
- Asset servicing is a key strategic component of respondents’ T2S strategies. Despite the decoupling of asset servicing from settlement as a result of the implementation of T2S, survey respondents continue to consider asset servicing as a key element of their strategies.
- The benefits of T2S highlighted by survey respondents include liquidity management, followed by settlement processing, collateral management and network rationalisation.
“The launch of the T2S platform has been a success”, said Marc Robert-Nicoud, CEO of Clearstream Holding. “Although the market struggled with some delays in the migration timetable, the system now operates in accordance with the schedule.” Following successful tests, Clearstream and LuxCSD will participate in migration wave 4 on 6 February 2017. “By consolidating all eligible assets at Clearstream, the largest T2S participant, customers will reduce their costs and improve their liquidity and collateral management”, Robert-Nicoud added.
The full survey is available here.