General – ECSDA

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!

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 welcomes Verðbréfamiðstöð íslands as a new member

We are delighted to announce that the recent general meeting, held on 24 November, marked the inclusion of a new member to the ECSDA family — Verðbréfamiðstöð Íslands hf. The ECSDA team is thrilled to welcome them aboard and looks forward to a fruitful collaboration.

With the addition of Verðbréfamiðstöð Íslands hf., ECSDA reaches a milestone of 40 Central Securities Depository (CSD) members. This achievement underscores our commitment to fostering a strong and diverse community within the European CSD landscape.

We extend our warmest greetings to Verðbréfamiðstöð Íslands hf. and are excited about the collaborative endeavors that lie ahead. Together, we will continue to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of securities depositories across Europe.

ECSDA Board drew lessons from the experience of the Ukrainian CSD (NDU)

At its last meeting, European Central Securities Depositories Association (ECSDA) Board drew lessons from the experience of the Ukrainian CSD (National Depository of Ukraine) about their operation during the war. Oleksii Yudin, Chairman of the NDU Management Board, shared their experience and discussed with the other ECSDA Members how they coordinated orderly market cloture at the beginning of the war and its restart of CSD operations at the market re-opening in August, also how they ensured the resilience of the CSD data and reviewed their projects in line with the changing needs of the market participants.

ECSDA Members expressed their profound sadness on the circumstances which required such a stress testing of business continuity measures of the Ukrainian CSD. However, this NDU crisis management experience and the conclusions drawn from it were ever so valuable for the reason of being lived.

ECSDA Secretariat is grateful for the experience shared by our member, the National Depository of Ukraine, and wishes for the restoration of Ukraine and its capital market!

SKDD to join T2S in 2023

On 19 May, the ECB announced that SKDD, the Croatian CSD, will migrate to Target 2 Securities in 2023.

See the full release.

ECSDA welcomes DCU from Moldova as new Member

ECSDA welcomes the Single Central Depository of Securities from Moldova as its new Member.
It is honoured to support the integration of the financial infrastructure of Moldova into the international capital markets ecosystem by sharing the best practices and standards of European Central Securities Depositories.

16/08/2021 – Press release of the National Bank of Moldova

Nasdaq CSD finalises migration of securities settlement platform to Icelandic securities market

On 24 August 2020, Nasdaq announced that the final step in the merger of Nasdaq CSD Iceland with Nasdaq CSD SE (Nasdaq CSD) took place with the successful technical migration of the Icelandic securities market to the Nasdaq CSD SE (Nasdaq CSD) securities settlement platform. The Icelandic branch is now be positioned to leverage the full potential of Nasdaq CSDs securities settlement platform and links to create new opportunities for domestic and international clients. Nasdaq CSD announced the merger with Nasdaq CSD Iceland on 25 May.

Please read the full release.

CMU HLF published its final report

On 10 June, the High-Level Forum on the Capital Markets Union organised under the hospices of the European Commission published its final report.

The report consists in 17 recommendations put forward with the intent of addressing relevant issues related to corporate access to finance, pan-European market architecture, retail investment and cross-border investment.

Recommendation on CSDR
The European Commission is invited to conduct a targeted review of Central Securities Depositories Regulation (CSDR) to strengthen the CSD passport and facilitate the servicing of domestic issuance in non-national currencies. This should be accompanied by measures to strengthen the supervisory convergence among National Competent Authorities (NCAs). These measures, taken jointly, should enhance the cross-border provision of settlement services in the EU.

Justification
A targeted review could usefully tackle the following issues:

CSD passporting and links
While the objective of CSDR is to create a “common CSD market” free of regulatory barriers and to offer CSDs a European passport, divergent application by NCAs of the rules according to which (I)CSDs should meet CSD links framework requirements and provide services in another Member State creates procedural and regulatory hurdles, fragmenting the post-trade landscape along national lines.
Cross-border payments and access to Central Bank and commercial liquidity
The CSDR has unintendedly limited access to global liquidity pools for CSDs without a “limited purpose banking license”. Consequently, these CSDs cannot service domestic issuance in other currencies, including sovereign debt. The CSDR foresees the possibility for CSDs without a banking licence to appoint a “designated credit institution”. However, such liquidity providers have not emerged yet. National Central Banks (NCBs) should facilitate non-domestic (I)CSDs to process settlement in Central Bank Money in other currencies (including those frequently used for issuance and settlement: GBP, CHF, USD), after taking due account of the implications of such access. Alternatively, the CSDR restrictions that prohibit CSDs holding a banking license to provide such services to other CSDs could be amended.
Supervision of CSDs
Divergence in national supervisory approaches is still an important fragmentation factor in the provision of settlement services that generates costs and limits the cross-border offer. Given that securities laws are not harmonised across EU 27, NCAs still have a role to play. Therefore, ESMA’s work within the current scope of its mandate in terms of convergence should be continued and strengthened. The aim should be to ensure convergence in supervisory approaches across the Member States to reduce administrative burdens on CSDs and to generate the value added for the EU financial markets in terms of the CSDR objectives.

Please read the full report