Public – ECSDA

ECSDA’s call for action on Europe’s Capital Markets Competitiveness

Today, 22 July 2024, ECSDA released its Call for action on Europe’s Capital Markets Competitiveness.

As the EU begins a new political cycle, ECSDA reaffirms its continued support for the further development and revitalisation of the Capital Markets Union (CMU). As Financial Market Infrastructures offering key services to issuers, investors and securities markets, Central Securities Depositories (CSDs) play an integral role in creating a more integrated, efficient and competitive EU capital market.

A number of key reports (Eurogroup, Letta, Draghi, Noyer and ESMA) entail important elements to lay the foundation for the next EU legislative agenda. They also include key recommendations on increasing the attractiveness of the European capital markets for issuers and investors and deepening the liquidity in the region.

ECSDA supports some of the recommendations related to post-trading and agrees that post-trade activities could be more efficient but questions others, especially on solutions for integrating the post-trade. This topic is not new, but a renewed reflection of its relevance may be warranted.

Below, ECSDA identifies some measures that could further strengthen Europe’s capital markets integration and growth from a post-trade perspective. Key elements that continue to act as material barriers to market integration and fragmentation include for instance securities law, market specificities and tax procedures. The EU should therefore rather improve the current realities to empower private sector CSDs to drive natural integration and consolidation via fair cross-border competition. In our view, the European Capital Market deeply benefits from its CSD competitiveness.

In this document, ECSDA provides its views and recommendations on:

the role of CSDs in supporting market integration;
the root causes of post-trade fragmentation;
the impact of forcing further consolidation without addressing the root causes of fragmentation;
the way forward to achieve further integration.

Please read the full document.

The ECSDA Board elects Chair of the Corporate Event & Vice-Chair of the Policy WG

On 4 July, the ECSDA Board elected Thomas Metier, Head of Nordic Business Operations at Euronext Securities, as Chair of the Corporate Event Working Group and Mireille Galeazzi, Director of Public Affairs at Euroclear as Vice-Chair of the Policy Working Group.

The Corporate Events Working Group aims to address the challenges resulting from unharmonised regulation and leading to different local practices, by developing and implementing standardized processes and protocols for CSD corporate event management. Under Mr Metier’s leadership, the working group will foster collaboration among key stakeholders and is commited to work toward a harmonized European capital market that is efficient, resilient, and globally competitive.

Mrs Galeazzi looks forward to act as Vice Chair of the Policy Working Group and engage in the new European regulatory and political agenda as per the recent European elections.

The Capital Markets Union(CMU), is expected to be an important component of the upcoming agenda with expectations on the post-trade environment including, CSDs to further foster deeper and efficient financial markets.
Together with the group’s Chair, she will strive to bring forward the European CSD’s contribution to these key topics.

Welcome to both of them!

Joint Associations’ letter – European Cybersecutity Certification Scheme for Cloud

The European Association of CCP Clearing Houses (EACH), the European Central Securities Depositories Association (ECSDA), and the Federation of European Securities Exchanges (FESE) (the co-signatories) welcome the progress made on the European Cybersecurity Certification Scheme for Cloud Services (EUCS) and ask for a swift adoption of the scheme. The associations support the direction of the latest EUCS proposal that maintains three assurance levels as foreseen by the Cybersecurity Act and reflects discussions across sectors and inputs from industry so far.

Read the full letter.

ECSDA elects its New Board Directors and Advisors to the Senior Council

ECSDA is pleased to announce significant changes to its governance structure starting from the General Meeting held in Brussels on 14 May.

Following the earlier decision to change the governance, the ECSDA General Meeting elected a new reduced Board and appointed Advisors to the Senior Council, marking a pivotal moment in the organisation’s evolution.

The Board, comprising 14 members, reflects the diversity of the Association in terms of gender, geography and size of the CSD members. As many of the new directors have served on ECSDA’s Executive Committee, the new composition ensures a continuity in the direction of ECSDA’s vision and contribution to the securities communities its membership serves. Our directors bring a wealth of experience and leadership, and their dedication will surely steer ECSDA towards continued success in the dynamic European securities landscape supporting the European and global economies.

The Senior Industry Council will advise the Board and ECSDA’s member CSDs on the strategic positioning of the Association on the main industry challenges, the European harmonisation agenda and the ways in which we can best provide high levels of efficiency and safety to issuers and investors in Europe and beyond. The Council includes individuals with diverse expertise and a shared commitment to advancing the mission of ECSDA. ECSDA will be able to supplement the Senior CSD Industry Council with external observers deeply knowledgeable in post-trade in the coming months.

ECSDA is also preparing to open its Senior Industry Council to firms that are not CSDs but are active in the post-tarde segment who now will have the opportunity to join some meetings as affiliates, adding greater diversity and perspectives to the Association.

Key positions within the ECSDA Board:
Chairperson: Mark Gem, Managing Director, Clearstream Banking AG
Vice-Chair: Guillaume Eliet, CEO, Euroclear ESES CSDs
Vice-Chair: Olga Jordão, CEO of Euronext Securities | Porto
Treasurer: Georg Zinner, Managing Director, OeKB CSD

Other newly elected Board Directors:
Indars Aščuks, Chair of the Management Board, Nasdaq CSD SE
Francisco Béjar Nuñez, Managing Director, Iberclear/BME
Mira Dobreva-Hilton, Director of International Affairs and Strategic Projects, CDAD
Ondřej Dusílek, CEO, CSD Prague
Anne Pascale Malréchauffé, Managing Director, Clearstream Banking SA
Dora Matošić, President of the Management Board, SKDD
Alessio Mottola, CEO, Euronext Securities | Milan
Ilse Peeters, Head of Government Relationships & Public Affairs, Euroclear Bank
Florentin Soliva, Head of Public and Regulatory Affairs Post-Trade, SIX Group Services AG
Maciej Trybuchowski, President of the Management Board, KDPW group

Senior CSD Industry Council:
Simon Belser, Head International Custody Operations, SIX SIS AG
Jesús Benito, CEO, Iberclear
Silvia Buicanescu, CEO, Depozitarul Central
Marco Caligaris, CEO, LuxCSD
Chris Elms, CEO, Euroclear UK & International
Peter Felsinger, Managing Director, OeKB CSD
Vasil Golemanski, Executive Director, CDAD
Tomáš Lněnička, Deputy CEO, CSD Prague
Alessio Mottola, CEO, Euronext Securities | Milan
Ilse Peeters, Head of Government Relationships & Public Affairs, Euroclear Bank
Roger Storm, CEO, Euroclear Sweden
Hanna Vainio, CEO, Euroclear Finland
Igor Vojinović, CEO and Executive Director, CSC & CC Montenegro
Martin Wiedermann, Managing Director and Chair of the Board, CDCP SR
Sujata Wirsching, Head of Unit Government Relation Luxembourg and Lead Digital Finance, GRS, Deutsche Börse Group/Clearstream

Observers to the Council:
Ekrem Arikan, CEO and Board member, MKK
Darinka Damjanovic, Executive Director, CSD AD Skopje

The ECSDA Board and Senior Council are supported by the Secretary-General of ECSDA, Anna Kulik, leading the work of the ECSDA Secretariat.

Press release
ECSDA Board and Senior Council

ECSDA responds to the AMI-SeCo survey on remaining barriers to post-trade market integration

On 31 January 2024, ECSDA submitted its response to the AMI-SeCo survey on remaining barriers to post-trade market integration, adding another milestone in the efforts to identify and address the remaining barriers to post-trade integration

Read the full response.

ECSDA published its response to the targeted consultation on SRDs

On 31 January, ECSDA published its response to the targeted consultation on the Shareholder Rights Directives (SRDs), which is part of a study for the European Commission to assess the implementation and application of certain parts of the SRDs.

The consultation aims to cover a broader range of the provisions of the SRDs and potential changes in the future.

Read the full consultation.

ECSDA Publishes its Systemic Risk Indicators Report

FMIs, including CSDs, play a critical role in the financial system and the broader economy. While safe and efficient FMIs contribute to maintaining and promoting financial stability and economic growth, they also concentrate risk. If not properly managed, FMIs can thus be sources of financial shocks or a major channel through which these shocks are transmitted across domestic and international financial markets.

With the objective of contributing to safer financial markets, ECSDA Risk Management Working Group (RM WG) decided to set up a Task Force dedicated to deepening our understanding of systemic risk and the indicators allowing CSDs to identify, assess, measure, respond to, and report on systemic risk. From the outset, the Task Force focused on the potential exposures to macroeconomic stress for CSDs and the systemic risk implications of the interaction between CSDs and market participants for the financial ecosystem. The Task Force discussions revealed that systemic risk touches upon various other domains that deal with significant stress, disruption, or financial shocks, such as business continuity, disaster recovery, and recovery planning. It was, therefore, a challenge to approach some of these domains from a systemic risk perspective and leverage existing insights, while avoiding unnecessary overlap.

We concluded on a proposed set of indicators, structured in the form of a high-level systemic risk dashboard that is presented in the report. It was agreed that ECSDA RM WG Members will start using the proposed methodology, which may evolve and mature over time.