It is available 'T2S - TARGET2-Securities. The pan-European platform for the settlement of securities in central bank money', the fourth issue of the series 'Markets, infrastructures, payment systems.'
The good functioning of financial markets requires safe and efficient infrastructures for the orderly conclusion of market transactions. The ESCB Statute mandates that the Eurosystem "ensure efficient and sound clearing and payment systems within the Union". In line with this mandate, the Eurosystem has developed the settlement infrastructures TARGET2 - for large‑value payments, TARGET2-Securities (T2S) - for securities, TIPS - for instant payments.
The present work focuses on T2S: the pan-European platform that manages in a harmonised way the settlement phase of securities transactions. The related cash transfers take place on the accounts that financial intermediaries hold with their central bank (settlement in central bank money or monetary base). The go-live of T2S in June 2015 was a milestone in European financial markets integration, as it took place in a landscape of domestic infrastructures that applied heterogeneous procedures and standards to the settlement of securities. Such heterogeneity represented a barrier to the realisation of the single capital market.
