T+1 – ECSDA

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 celebrates the good start of T+1 Committee and invites all Members and other stakeholders to join it!

ECSDA celebrates the good start of the T+1 Committee and is pleased to present the ECSDA Members appointed to co-lead the T+1 Technical Workstreams.

Gareth Jones, Euroclear Group – Operational Timetable
Kathy Waldie, Clearstream – Settlement
Alessio Mottola, Euronext Securities – Corporate Events
Sujata Wirsching, Clearstream – Legal and Regulatory
Jesús Sánchez, SIX Group – Settlement Efficiency
Thomas Metier, Euronext Securities – Settlement Efficiency

ECSDA Members are still welcome to propose additional participants to the technical streams by reaching out to Barbara Domenici at info@ecsda.eu.

Non-ECSDA Members interested in contributing to the T+1 industry discussions are encouraged to express their interest via the ESMA website.

Official launch of the governance structure for the transition to T+1 Settlement Cycle

Paris, 22 January 2025

Giovanni Sabatini, Chair of the European T+1 Industry Committee welcomes the official launch of the governance structure for the transition to T+1 Settlement Cycle

Today the European Securities and Markets Authorities (ESMA) hosted the T+1 Governance Launch Meeting to present the arrangements for driving the move to the reduction of default settlement cycles to T+1 for EU securities markets.

The reduction of the settlement cycle for securities transactions can help reduce counterparty credit risks, improve market efficiency, and address issues arising from the current lack of alignment between the settlement cycles of Europe and other major global markets, which creates costs and inefficiencies for investors, issuers, intermediaries, and market infrastructures.

Aware of the benefits and costs that this transition entails, members of the Industry Committee have welcomed the ESMA report, which identified a pathway and also suggested a date for the transition to the T+1 settlement cycle.

In line with the recommendations of that report, and in coordination with the public authorities, the industry has established an appropriate governance framework to guide the transition process with the aim of moving to T+1 in a manner and timing also coordinated with the UK and Swiss markets.

At the meeting on January 22 organised by ESMA, the independent chair of the T+1 Industry Committee, Giovanni Sabatini, presented the Terms of Reference for the T+1 Industry Committee, the committee’s composition, and the organisation of work across the various identified Technical Workstreams, along with an initial draft of the work plan.

The principles underpinning the composition of the committee and its activities are representativeness, inclusivity, transparency, consensus-seeking, and efficiency. In this regard, the committee’s work may build upon the work already completed by the European industry in the October 2024 report, as well as the ESMA report and the UK recommendations, US Playbook, and upcoming Swiss report, when relevant.

The Chair of the Industry Committee, Giovanni Sabatini, commented: ‘The T+1 project is a collective effort of the financial industry based on good faith and credibility. Establishing a robust, balanced, and inclusive governance framework is key to ensuring broad acceptance and support while avoiding overcomplexity. A coordinated move to T+1 will support the efficiency, liquidity, and competitiveness of EU financial markets. Constructive, transparent, and continuous cooperation with European Authorities will be key to ensuring the success of the project.’”

Joint EU T+1 Industry Task Force issues its report

Today, ECSDA together with other industry associations is publishing the Joint industry report on the shortening of the settlement cycle to T+1. On this occasion, ECSDA would like to highlight the following key points:

The European CSD Association is very pleased with the finalisation of the joint industry report on T+1. However, the current attempt to define recommendations and requirements in the Joint report shall be considered very preliminary at this stage.
To advance, only an EU-wide governance with a clear mandate will be capable of recommending the necessary changes and defining a reliable timeline for achieving an efficient T+1 settlement cycle. We believe it is necessary to create a structure at the EU level with a mandate from the authorities and reporting to ESMA to adopt the recommendations supported by further operational impact analysis, similar to other countries (ex. UK).
ECSDA believes that the EU should proceed in coordination and alignment with the UK and Switzerland in their adoption of T+1. A clear indication of the date of the move should be made under the appropriate EU governance as soon as possible. However, much depends on the changes to be implemented, and a careful impact assessment must be made, amongst others to consider a potential need for changes in T2S or any other CSD settlement platform.

Please read the full report.

Assocations’ explanatory note on the impact of the US move to T+1 on corporate actions

On 3 September 2024, the European Central Securities Depositories Association (ECSDA) jointly with the Association for Financial Markets in Europe (AFME) and the Federation of European Stock Exchanges (FESE), published a joint explanatory note on the impact of the US move to T+1 on corporate actions processing for multi-listed and multi-traded securities. The key dates for corporate actions of securities issued in North America changed following the settlement cycle reduction to T+1 in May this year.

The Associations identified four scenarios of possible situations faced by European actors in the aftermath of the implementation of T+1 in the other regions. The analysis performed covers all actors within the chain from the Issuer through to the End Investor.

Read the full document.