Euroclear has been granted its fourth license to operate under the EU’s Central Securities Depository Regulation (CSDR) for its Finnish CSD.
Euroclear Finland, the national CSD of Finland with assets of over €375 billion in custody, received authorisation from the Finnish Ministry of Finance to continue operations under the regulation.
“The level playing field created by the CSDR and the recently-completed CSD infrastructure renewal project position Euroclear Finland in the forefront among the European CSDs to enter the new phase of a more standards-based securities settlement,” Euroclear stated.
Last year, Euroclear Finland implemented market infrastructure technology provided by Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), with the aim to replace its legacy IT system and meet requirements under CSDR and TARGET2 Securities (T2S).
The adoption of the TCS flagship product, TCS BaNCS, represented the first transformation in Europe of a CSD replacing its core legacy system.
Euroclear has received CSDR authorisation for three other CSDs based in France, Belgium and the Netherlands to carry on providing securities settlement and tri-party services.
Approved in 2014, CSDR created a common framework for CSDs and trade settlement within the EU. Among CSDR’s provisions are penalties for settlement failures, which some believe will introduce greater discipline in the market.
These penalties will accumulate on a daily basis beginning at the point at which the trade was supposed to be settled, and concluding at the time of actual settlement or at the end of the buy-in process. CSDs, meanwhile, will be obliged to monitor and report details of settlement fails to local regulators.