The European Central Bank (ECB) released its 13th report on Target2-Securities, which presents the changes in T2S settlement data and confirms the continuing operational stability and efficiency of T2S. It describes the developments which took place in 2023, as well as some of the main incidents that had an impact on the platform throughout the year.
There is also in-depth information on the migration of five CSDs to T2S, initiatives aimed at improving settlement efficiency, the go-live of the T2-T2S consolidation, as well as the strategic evolution of the platform.
Five new CSDs successfully migrated to the platform: the Bulgarian National Bank Government Securities Settlement System (BNBGSSS) and Central Depository AD (CDAD) in Bulgaria, Središnje klirinško depozitarno društvo d.d. (SKDD) in Croatia, Euroclear Finland and Euroclear Bank. The number of CSDs connected to T2S therefore increased to 24, and the number of European countries with CSDs relying on T2S increased from 20 to 23.
As a result of the migration waves, the monthly total T2S settlement volumes increased from 1,815,790 transactions in September 2015 to 11,804,649 transactions in October 2017. Between November 2018 and December 2019, total T2S settlement volumes averaged 12,819,952 transactions per month. In March 2020, following the outbreak of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, total monthly traffic peaked at 20,232,528 transactions. Monthly volumes reached over 20 million transactions in March 2022, due to market turmoil following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, although this was lower than the peak in March 2020. T2S settled an average of 14,813,882 transactions per month in 2023, ranging between a low of 12,164,431 in April (owing to the fact that there were only 18 operating days) and a high of 17,314,155 in March.
As traffic in T2S stabilised in its first few years of operation, settlement efficiency in volume terms became less volatile and averaged 96.85% between November 2018 and December 2019. Following the introduction of the new T2S statistical framework, and consequently a new calculation method, settlement efficiency in volume terms decreased to 94.81% in January 2020. The particularly high volumes settled in March 2020 affected settlement efficiency, which declined to 92.81%. Since mid-2022, settlement efficiency in volume has experienced a steady increase, from 92.11% in July 2022 to 95.03% in December 2023.