Overall, this spring’s shift to the T+1 trade settlement cycle in the US and other American countries went well – for American firms. For European firms it started out more challenging, particularly early on, and many operations teams had to run fast to catch up for lacking preparation. A panel at the Optic conference looked into the lessons learned ahead of a possible move to T+1 in Europe itself. Swift’s Charifa El Otmani presented numbers showing investor-side firms having made their fx trades smaller and more frequent – quite probably meaning more expensive.
Britta Woernle, Director, Head of Market Advocacy Europe Securities Services, Deutsche Bank, led the discussion with panellists
Charifa El Otmani, Director, Capital Markets, Strategy, SWIFT,
Mack Gill, Head of Securities Processing, FIS Capital Markets,
Sachin Mohindra, Executive Director, Client & Market Solutions, Goldman Sachs, and
Silvia Sancin, Senior Custody Solutions Manager, Securities Services, BNP Paribas.
Getting processes orderly and efficient in good time could be a good idea, and it was suggested that European entities should make good use of the several years that they will quite definitely have before a T+1 cycle could be in place across the contintent. Mack Gill referred to having heard T+1 being likened to a luxurious penthouse flat. To be worth buying it had better be built on a solidly built house.
The yearly Optic conference, in London on 2–3 October 2024, is hosted by the Association for Financial Markets in Europe (AFME). Optic stands for the “Operations, post trade, technology and innovation conference”. PostTrade 360° is there, with our coverage collected here.
