With Europe’s T+1 transition a little less than two years away now, the topic is inevitable on the agenda at every industry event – same goes for the ECSDA Post-trade Conference 2025. In the panel titled “The path to T+1 settlement in Europe”, six industry bigwigs took to the stage to discuss the challenges and opportunities of a shorter settlement cycle in the region.
A poll during the session revealed that 41 per cent of the audience “have read the T+1 implementation plans, know what to do, have budget, and have started implementing their own compliance plan”. Seven per cent have not started any of the preparation actions mentioned in the poll options.
Juliette Kennel, global head of standards at Swift expressed alarm at the results. “41 per cent seems low,” she comments.
Yet, she acknowledged that even merely getting familiar with the implementation plans is a challenge – “Take SSIs (standard settlement instructions) for example; we have a 60-page market practice document available. I think we can agree that no one is going to read the whole thing.”
A different take
Kathy Waldie, director and head of Target Service Governance at Clearstream, suggested that the industry should reflect on how it approaches implementation. “There can be a tendency, particularly if it’s perceived that a market practice is not being implemented, to ask the CSDs to implement a technical solution. In my view, in many cases, that’s like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut,” she says.
“There’s a case for going back to the associations to establish why the market practice is not being implemented the way everyone has signed up to. I think here at this conference, we’re all very aware of the pressure that we are under – the perception in the market that CSDs are more expensive than they should be, but some of those critics will, on the other hand, turn around and ask the CSDs to implement technical solutions that are a cost driver. We need to find a balance, but we should not shy away from asking the market via the associations to enforce market practice at least in the initial phase, rather than putting in a possible technical solution.”
The ECSDA Post-trade Conference 2025, held on 18 November 2025, is hosted by the European Central Securities Depositories Association (ECSDA). Follow our coverage in the coming days on the site.
