The European Central Bank (ECB) published an action plan to address the recommendations of an independent review mandated by the ECB’s Governing Council in November 2020, following the five major incidents that affected TARGET2 and TARGET2 Securities in 2020. The action plan also addresses recommendations issued by the Eurosystem oversight function and the Internal Audit Committee in relation to these incidents.
The action plan consists of six workstreams: change and release management, business continuity management, fail-over and recovery tests, communication protocols, governance, and data center and IT operations. Measures addressing several recommendations have already been agreed or implemented in the course of 2021, while most of the remaining ones will be implemented by the end of 2022. The measures will benefit all TARGET services, including TARGET Instant Payment Settlement (TIPS). Market participants will be kept informed about their deployment.