As Europe’s Savings and Investments Union (SIU) initiative focuses on post-trade integration, new data published by the European Central Securities Depositories Association (ECSDA) makes a case for expanding infrastructure connections and incentives from the retail investor perspective. 

H1 2025 data from 29 EU CSDs and two European Economic Area (EEA) CSDs (Iceland and Norway) shows trends in direct, indirect and relayed links between investor and issuer CSDs across Europe and reveals underused services where policy intervention could help. This would complement current CSD work on a single CSD investor account for all EU securities.

ECSDA asserts that while CSD links expand investor and issuer reach by supporting cross-border settlement, liquidity pooling and reduced fragmentation, broader ecosystem collaboration and end-investor incentives remain crucial in furthering the SIU objectives. 

Further simplification can reduce costs of establishing and maintaining links: “When CSDs establish connectivity, participants often don’t use the full range of available services. Even in countries where CSDs have significant links, retail investors often cannot access the full range of securities from linked markets (privileging US over medium-sized or smaller EU markets).”

Understanding why CSD participants don’t fully leverage links and how to stimulate usage must precede measures for enhancing the post-trade side of SIU, it said.  

Supporting full EU coverage 

Specifically, ECSDA stresses three things are essential to support full coverage of all EU markets by CSD links: First is stimulating supply and demand to improve cross-border volumes and further use of CSD links and TARGET2-Securities (T2S); second is decreasing European legal fragmentation including resolving legal conflicts and divergences that hinder CSD links or the creation of cross-border platforms; and third is increasing the volumes of cross-border transactions by simplifying and decreasing the costs of the establishment and maintenance of links, facilitating the establishment of relayed links and ensuring that market actors effectively use the established links and enable access to other EU markets for the retail investors.

Legal frameworks

ECSDA recommends decreasing duplications and simplifying Central Securities Depository Regulation  (CSDR) and Regulatory Technical Standards (RTS) 392/2017 requirements. For example, ESMA’s “Simplification and burden reduction” initiative requires CSDs to gather information about critical service providers and review governance of other CSDs. With EU CSDs and National Competent Authorities already conducting these checks, this appears duplicative for EU CSD links. ECSDA is also pursuing initiatives supporting standardisation and cost-efficiency. The Association developed a due diligence questionnaire facilitating information collection for link assessment by European CSDs.

Evolution of CSD links – what the data shows

In 2025, 372 investor CSD links were reported. 28 ECSDA members (70%) maintain at least one outbound investor CSD link. As of Q1 2025, only 12 of 40 members reported no active outbound links, though several maintain inbound links.

119 links (46.30%) are direct – a slight increase from 116 in 2024. Indirect links total 44 (17.12%). Relayed links – which allow investor CSDs to access securities from issuer CSDs through a “middle CSD” – account for 94 (36.58%). This pattern reflects low demand for cross-border equity investments at the CSD level, explained partly by “home bias”, says ECSDA.  

As of 2025, 21 ECSDA members established 159 active CSD links via T2S platform – a significant expansion. T2S connectivity has occasionally changed local CSD account structures, increasing omnibus accounts and internalised settlement outside the platform. ECSDA believes leveraging T2S is essential to SIU by enhancing the platform, its resiliency, and ensuring higher volumes through increased participant usage and adjusted connectivity models.

Key policy recommendations

ECSDA says the follow actions are needed to enhance post-trade connectivity in support of an SIU:

  • A coherent supervisory approach from the retail investor perspective, and industry-wide engagement on SIU actions
  • A simplified legal framework for CSD link setup and maintenance, plus decreasing fragmentation
  • Incentivising links and intrastructure usage, facilitating retail investors’ access to capital markets