The European Association of CCP Clearing Houses (EACH) has responded to the European Central Bank (ECB) consultation on a possible extension of Target2 (T2) operating hours. Our key messages:
- We support longer operating hours in the long term for the RTGS and CLM, focusing on weekdays and public holidays only, rather than 7 days a week, 365 days a year operations.
- We support shifting the current maintenance window starting at 18:00 away from these core clearing hours, in the short term.
- We believe a phased implementation approach, with a reasonable transition period of at least two years would work best, thereby ensuring market participants can adapt smoothly and in coordination with related TARGET services.
We stress that extending T2 operating hours would:
- Strengthen the international role of the euro by enhancing the attractiveness of EU post-trade infrastructure and CCPs, particularly in critical markets such as energy, including by allowing clearing participants to rely on the euro for margin payments later into the day and reducing reliance on non-euro currencies.
- Reduce operational risks and costs by addressing the current 18:00–19:30 CET maintenance window, which restricts euro liquidity when CCPs may issue margin calls, particularly visible during volatile periods and under T+1.
- Support cross-border payments by increasing the speed, transparency, and finality of settlements, consistent with the G20-endorsed roadmap for enhancing cross-border payments.
- Future-proof T2 against potential future shorter settlement periods and longer global trading hours.
The full EACH response is available here.
