Public – ECSDA

ECSDA Releases New Publication: “CSDs as Innovation Pillars”

Today, 17 July, ECSDA shared its latest publication: “CSDs as Innovation Pillars.”
In an era of rapid technological change and evolving regulation, the paper explores how Central Securities Depositories (CSDs) are innovating while remaining trusted anchors of stability in the financial system.

Key topics covered:

- - CSDs’ contribution in the EU’s competitiveness agenda
  - Legal certainty as a foundation for digital transformation
  - Concrete use cases involving DLT, AI, and Cloud
  - Contributions to ECB trials and fintech collaboration
  - Emerging AI applications across risk, operations, and client services

The document underscores that technology evolution is a continuum—not a disruption—for CSDs. With a strong, technology-neutral regulatory framework, CSDs are ideally positioned to lead the way toward a resilient, efficient, and innovative capital markets infrastructure.

Read the full document

EU T+1 Industry Committee High Level Roadmap launch event

EU T+1 Industry Committee launches roadmap and opens consultation period for capital markets transformation

Brussels, 3 July 2025 – The EU T+1 Industry Committee held a landmark summit today, marking a significant milestone in improving the competitiveness and efficiency of Europe’s capital markets. The Committee presented its high-level roadmap to guide market participants through the transition to a shorter securities settlement cycle, scheduled for implementation on 11 October 2027.
The roadmap launch represents a critical step forward in the EU’s broader strategic ambition to establish a Savings and Investments Union (SIU), aligning European markets with global best practices while enhancing their attractiveness to international investors. Shorter settlement cycles reduce risk and improve efficiencies in securities settlement post-trade.

EU public authorities’ support
EU public stakeholders commended the EU T+1 Industry Committee’s achievement, with keynote addresses by Verena Ross, Chair of the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) and Chair of the EU T+1 Coordination Committee, Markus Mayers, Advisor, Market Innovation and Integration, at the European Central Bank (ECB) and ECB alternate representative in the T+1 Coordination Committee, and John Berrigan, Director General at FISMA (Directorate General for Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union) at the European Commission. Their participation underscores the transformative nature of this initiative.

Giovanni Sabatini, Chair of the EU T+1 Industry Committee, emphasised the strategic importance of the transition: “Transitioning to T+1 settlement is not merely a technical adjustment; it reflects a broader commitment towards innovation and should be seen as a key component of the EU’s broader strategic ambition to establish a Savings and Investments Union.”

Key implementation themes
The roadmap emphasises two critical themes for successful implementation: the imperative to enhance automation and standardisation across all stages of the post-trade lifecycle. With T+1, the significantly reduced window between trade execution and settlement puts considerable additional pressure on operational timelines, making automation in key processes—including trade matching, securities lending, FX bookings, and corporate action handling—essential for success.

Next steps and timeline
Today’s launch event marks the official start of the consultation period, which will run until 31 August 2025. Market participants can access the consultation details and submit feedback through the link provided below. While this is not a
formal public consultation requiring document revision, relevant input will inform future activities of the Industry Committee.
Following the consultation period, market participants should focus on preparing their transition strategies and budgeting for necessary systems upgrades and testing throughout the remainder of 2025. The implementation phase in 2026 will see the EU T+1 Industry Committee release readiness surveys to monitor progress across the industry.

International coordination
The initiative demonstrates strong international coordination, particularly with the UK’s Accelerated Settlement Taskforce (AST). Andrew Douglas, Chair of the UK AST, commented on the collaborative approach: “There are lots of similarities between UK and EU recommendations. The real hard work starts now and we need to all get there at the same time and be there at the same time.”
This coordinated approach ensures that the transition maintains cross-border settlement efficiency while reducing systemic risks across interconnected European markets.

Industry impact
The roadmap addresses the complex multi-jurisdictional nature of European markets, coordinating the move to T+1 across 27 EU jurisdictions, multiple Central Securities Depositories (CSDs), and other market infrastructures. The recommendations developed “by the industry, for the industry,” provide a thoughtful, context-sensitive framework for implementation while acknowledging that a uniform approach may not suit all organisations equally.

The successful implementation of T+1 settlement will position Europe’s capital markets as modern, efficient, and competitive on the global stage, supporting the continent’s broader economic objectives while maintaining the highest standards of operational resilience and settlement efficiency.
Read the EU T+1 Industry Committee’s High-Level Roadmap and details of the EU T+1 governance framework’s activities on ESMA’s dedicated webpage by clicking here.
Provide feedback on the Roadmap by clicking here.

EU T+1 Industry Committee launch event on the High-Level Road Map

Launch event

The EU T+1 Industry Committee will host a launch event for market participants to discuss the recommendations on 3 July 2025.

Due to Webex technical limitations, the online participation has reached its maximum capacity of 1,000 attendees. Registrations will be processed on a first-come, first-served basis.
We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause and thank you for your understanding.
The presentations will be available on this and other associations’ websites.
For those who might not be able to attend the event, be reassured that we will be attentive to all the comments during the consultation phase which will start after the event.

Press release on the publication of the T+1 Industry Committee High-Level Road Map

The Committee’s report contains recommendations for market participants in the EU and EEA for transitioning to a shorter settlement cycle

The EU T+1 Industry Committee has published its High-Level Road Map for the transition to a T+1 settlement cycle for securities on 11 October 2027.

The roadmap contains a set of recommendations developed collaboratively by association representatives and workstream leads from various industry segments and its technical workstreams, with broad industry representation. These non-legally binding recommendations are designed to serve as a practical, expert-led framework to assist market participants in identifying and addressing the most critical operational considerations and to support firms’ preparations and budget allocations.

Today’s release marks the culmination of five months’ work on the recommendations and the Industry Committee’s publication of the roadmap, which has also been shared with the EU T+1 Coordination Committee.

The High-Level Road Map is available for download here: Shortening the settlement cycle to T+1 in the EU, and on the relevant industry associations’ websites.

Giovanni Sabatini, independent chair of the EU T+1 Industry Committee, noted: “Today’s publication of the High-Level Road Map and the recommendations included therein marks the kick-off of a complex process to move EU and EEA markets to T+1 on the agreed date of 11 October 2027, in coordination with the UK and Swiss markets. We urge all market participants to review the recommendations, assess the impact on their systems and procedures and start planning how they want to prepare for the transition to T+1”.

Sabatini added: “A key theme throughout this report is the imperative to enhance automation and eliminate manual interventions across all stages of the post-trade lifecycle.”

For more details on the EU T+1 governance structure, please visit this webpage: Shortening the settlement cycle to T+1 in the EU

Read the full report here.

ECSDA response to the European Commission’s consultation on the integration of EU capital markets.

On 10 June, the European Central Securities Depositories Association (ECSDA) welcomed the opportunity to respond to the European Commission Targeted Consultation on integration of EU Capital Markets.

CSDs are regulated market infrastructures enabling issuance, settlement and servicing of securities in the EU capital markets, interconnecting companies and investors across the EU.

European CSDs play a key role in helping issuers and investors navigate Europe’s complex multijurisdictional landscape. They process corporate actions on behalf of issuers and for the benefit of entitled investors, ensuring compliance with the corporate laws of the 27 European jurisdictions and beyond.

By providing secure and increasingly harmonised services, CSDs protect financial stability, reducing counterparty failure risk, keeping safe and certain investors’ rights over assets, and promoting transparency. Through ongoing innovation and harmonisation efforts, they support market efficiency and help strengthen investor confidence across the EU.

European CSDs remain strongly committed to supporting the SIU objectives by delivering secure, efficient, and innovative post-trade services.

As a general introduction, we recall the recent response to the Call for evidence on SIU. With this consultation ECSDA members would like to share the following key messages on SIU:

1. Cross-border provision of CSD services, links and freedom of issuance: clarity on drivers and room for further simplification

CSDs support the strengthening of the CSDR principle of freedom of issuance with convergent interpretation of the concept of “corporate law” in the field of post trade

We propose to underpin the idea of more interconnection between CSDs to support SIU with a deep understanding of the drivers of the market architecture being liquidity and demand sustainable business case, differences in the legal and tax requirements creating costs and complexities non only in the set up but also in the maintenance. CSDs also identify areas of simplification in the links authorization process.

We advocate for more collaboration across the value chain to make T2S, as essential and strong European infrastructure more efficient and scalable.

2. Post-trade barriers

With the consultation response, CSDs promote a clear identification of the remaining barriers and their effects on the market architecture.

On legal barriers, there are no inherent legal certainty issues affecting CSDs. It is essential to clarify that that as far as CSDs are concerned, the need to comply with diverse legal and tax frameworks across Member States, which hinders the harmonised handling of securities and limits scalability; the existence of passporting to handle foreign issuance is the symptom and prove of unresolved legal fragmentation; however, in our view, this fragmentation does not significantly deter cross-border investment decisions.

3. Regulatory simplification preserving competition and level playing field

ECSDA supports the values and merits of the EU regulatory framework, including technological neutrality, a level playing field, and functional consistency.

We also support regulatory simplification and burden reduction driven by greater convergence in the interpretation and implementation of EU legislation.

We recommend addressing overlaps and contradictions for example in the areas of operational resilience and cybersecurity—such as those found in CRA, NIS, DORA, CSDR, CRD/CRR, and MiFID—as well as in outsourcing frameworks across multiple legislations.

4. DLT operational and regulatory evolution

CSDs support the development of DLT in post trade services based on solutions that do not create further liquidity fragmentation. In the DLT field the regulatory framework is well structured and risk resilient and can be supported with clarifications and regulatory convergence to foster innovation and technology adoption.

Fragmentation in digital securities laws is emerging and can be avoided or solved with the idea of 28th regime for digital securities.

We emphasise the need for clarity on feasible DLT architectures to ensure that activities related to the registration and holding of securities are supported by a framework with clearly defined responsibilities.

For further modernisation and integration of different capital market segments, we also support the acceptance of wCBDC as CeBM, and a large range of DLT-based securities under the CSDR.

On the DLT Pilot Regime, ECSDA encourages greater legal and regulatory certainty regarding the transition pathway. In particular, it advocates for clear incentives that support firms in moving from the DLTPR to a fully regulated environment, including the integration of all services tested during the pilot phase into the permanent regulatory framework

Read the full response

ECSDA Responds to the call for evidence on the SIU

On 6 June 2025, The European Central Securities Depositories Association (ECSDA) welcomes the opportunity to respond to the Call for evidence for an impact assessment Savings and Investments Union fostering integration, scale and efficient supervision in the single market, in advance of the more detailed contribution that will be provided with the response to the Targeted Consultation on integration of EU Capital Markets.

CSDs are regulated market infrastructures enabling issuance, settlement and servicing of securities in the EU capital markets, interconnecting companies and investors across the EU.

Read the full document.

ECSDA Welcomes the Commission’s Communication on the Savings and Investments Union

We are pleased to see that the strategy places “Fostering Citizens’ Wealth and Economic Competitiveness in the EU” at its core.
We welcome the confirmed liquidity and grow centric approach and the recognition that only an effective, deep, and liquid financial market can mobilize savings for much-needed investments and that the EU financial system is seen as resilient, well-regulated and to be supported by further integration to channel more savings into productive investments.
We agree with the emphasized importance of making EU investment opportunities more attractive, encouraging retail savers to allocate more of their savings to capital market instruments to finance productive investments and the central importance of improving trust in financial products through easy, simple, and low-cost access to investment opportunities, enhanced financial literacy, savings arrangements, tax incentives, and fostering competition.
We share the call to transform the widespread sense of urgency into concrete actions, requiring the contribution of all actors under the joint responsibility of the EU and Member States.
We support the intention to address differences in national taxation procedures that create barriers to cross-border investment, building on progress already achieved with FASTER. This includes exploring a more harmonized approach to the ownership of investments and fund structures.
We particularly note that fragmentation is seen as to be addressed starting from its “sources,” aligning with ECSDA’s call for action on Capital Markets Competitiveness referring on the need to focus on the “root causes” of fragmentation, prioritizing the removal of barriers to be fostered through improved identification of gold-plating in EU legislation and areas of regulatory simplification to support market-driven consolidation.
We support the importance of further enhancing the interoperability, interconnection, and efficiency of EU trading and post-trading infrastructures. We see this objective as strongly connected to effective action on simplification and addressing the “sources” of fragmentation.

Read the full document.

ECSDA Responds to the European Commission’s Call for Evidence on SIU

Today, 10 March, ECSDA has submitted its response to the European Commission’s Call for Evidence on the SIU, reinforcing our commitment to fostering deeper capital markets integration and enhancing EU competitiveness.

In our response, we welcome the recent policy initiatives proposing structural reforms aimed at increasing capital market liquidity and simplifying regulatory frameworks. We emphasize the need to tackle fragmentation at its root, support market-driven competition, and strengthen the resilience of Europe’s post-trade infrastructure.

We remain committed to contributing to the identification of measures that could improve regulatory convergence and seamless investments across the EU.

Link to the full response

ECSDA introduces a brand-new category of stakeholders: ECSDA Affiliates

Exciting Opportunity: Become an ECSDA Affiliate!

The role of CSDs has never been more central to the advancement of Europe’s policy decisions for CMU, SIU and T+1. For CSDs, this is both an exciting and challenging era. You may also be able to stand by the CSDs and contribute to the innovation and further efficiencies they bring to their markets. Are you an entity working or willing to work closely with Central Securities Depositories (CSDs)? Now is your chance to become an ECSDA Affiliate and play a key role in shaping the industry’s future.

ECSDA Affiliate, this exclusive group is for organisations whose activities align closely with Central Securities Depositories (CSDs).

As an ECSDA Affiliate, you will

Influence the industry – Advise and help to shape the industry’s conversation in harmonisation, standardisation and best practices
Network and gain exclusive industry insights – Gain direct access to the ECSDA Board and Senior CSD Industry Council, the leading voice of Europe’s CSDs;
Unlock business opportunities – Receive support for bilateral business matching;
Access exclusive events – Enjoy early invitations to the prestigious ECSDA Conference and much more.

Join us in shaping the future of the CSD landscape!

There is no restriction on the entity profile or its location to become an ECSDA Affiliate. Get more information on Become and ECSDA Affiliate.