A report last Friday may have landed as an eye opener for many. A rather clear draft for the United Kingdom’s move to a T+1 standard settlement cycle was published, with implementation in 2027. An ask-me-anything session let Andrew Douglas, chair of the UK T+1 Technical Group, share his background reflections.

Andrew Douglas was on stage together with BNP Paribas’ Alan Cameron, who was tasked to channel the questions from the audience.

The preferred solution would be to move in concert with the EU and Switzerland by the end of 2027. If that can’t be done, there would need to be a choice between waiting for the EU or going ahead alone.

Carrying odd socks in his sports shoes, Andrew Douglas was assumed by one audience member to be unfearful of misalignment. While preferring the step in alignment, it is not all-decisive.

“We’re already misaligned with the US and that’s the bigger problem.”

With the task force having been quick to work out its plan, Andrew Douglas now expects the consultation inputs from the industry to be to-the-point. He sees the drop of last Friday’s draft and consultation report as a way to say “these are our recommendations; if you don’t agree with them, tell us why you don’t and what you suggest instead”. General anonymous complaints would go straight into the bin, he promised.


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.