The European Central Bank's plans to develop a common framework for securities settlement across Europe have been boosted by the agreement of three Euroclear central depositories in Belgium, France and The Netherlands to participate in the scheme.
In May, the ECB announced that it had enticed nine CSDs across Europe to join the T2S project, offering significant price concessions for early registration.
As participant fees for using T2S are dependent upon volumes, the late arrival of Euroclear is a promising development. The three CSDs in the Euroclear group settled EUR87 trillion of securities transactions in 2011, representing 31 million transactions.
Joël Mérère, chairman of the boards of the three Euroclear CSDs states: "The three Euroclear group central securities depositories are reflecting local market sentiment by taking the decision to sign the T2S Framework Agreement. As the first and only group of markets in continental Europe to have consolidated and harmonised transaction settlement and custody services on a shared platform, we appreciate the benefits of large-scale processing consolidation and harmonisation that T2S has the capacity to provide."