Clearstream Banking Frankfurt (CBF), the Central Securities Depository (CSD) for the German domestic market, and Clearstream Banking Luxembourg, in its role as the CSD for Luxembourg, will sign the Memorandum of Understanding presented by the Governing Council of the European Central Bank (ECB) on TARGET2-Securities (T2S), the new Eurosystem service planned for securities settlement.

The Memorandum of Understanding was presented by the ECB on 19 March to the CSDs for signature by end of June 2009. It formalizes CSDs’ commitment to the project and defines a path leading to the signature of the agreements for development, migration and operation of the new system for securities settlement.

Clearstream is also one of the founding partners of Link Up Markets, a Joint venture between eight European CSDs (Austria, Cyprus, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Norway, Spain, Switzerland) to lower the post trade costs of cross-border securities trading and operate by Clearstream here in Luxembourg. Link Up Markets went live in April this year. Acting as a facilitator to T2S, Link Up Markets will prepare both the CSDs and the market participants for a world with T2S. Once T2S is implemented Link Up Markets will ensure the necessary CSD interaction for asset servicing and other services requested by CSD customers which are not provided by T2S.

Katja Rosenkranz, member of the executive management of Clearstream International and member of the executive committee of Clearstream Banking Frankfurt said: “Clearstream’s signing of the MoU is yet another illustration of our active support to T2S. From the beginning, Clearstream has played a major and constructive role in the Eurosystem’s project to establish the T2S platform. Clearstream will continue to support the objectives of reducing the complexity of securities settlement and of promoting the integration of Europe’s financial markets. At the same time, Clearstream believes it is paramount to be able to enter into legally binding contractual agreements regarding both the development phase and the operational phase of T2S in order to ensure that a critical mass of transactions is achieved”.

TARGET2-Securities (Trans-European Automated Real-time Gross Settlement Express Transfer System) is a project of the Eurosystem launched in 2006 aimed at creating a single IT platform for the settlement of securities in euro central bank money. The settlement platform is operated by the European Central Bank with the objective of reducing the cost of cross-border securities settlement within the euro area.