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Brussels and Luxembourg – Euroclear Bank and Clearstream Banking Luxembourg today jointly announced a programme of improvements to the automated daytime ‘Bridge’ between the two international central securities depositories (ICSDs).
Delivery of the first enhancement which is scheduled for January 2007, will improve overall settlement efficiency for the ICSDs’ respective clients and increase the capacity for same-day transaction settlement and securities financing across the Bridge. Further details about future upgrades to the Bridge will be communicated in due course.
Specifically, this first enhancement to the daytime Bridge will:- increase settlement opportunities, particularly for trades settling on T+0, for clients with the addition of three new file exchanges of settlement related information in the afternoon (from 7 to 10 times per day);
- provide more timely and frequent transaction-repair and fail-management information to clients as a result of three new exchanges of transaction matching files (from 17 to 20 times per day); and
- extend instruction input deadlines for clients by more than one hour for key settlement cycles during the day.
Clearstream Banking Luxembourg and Euroclear Bank are committed to making continuous improvements to the Bridge in order to support international capital market professionals with fast, efficient and reliable settlement between the ICSDs. The ICSDs have established a forum to define and deliver further enhancements to the Bridge in line with market needs. This initiative aims to maximise same-day financing and transaction-management possibilities for the global market place across the Bridge.
Martine Dinne, Chief Executive Officer, Euroclear Bank, commented: “The evolving interoperability between Euroclear Bank and Clearstream Banking Luxembourg is a shining example of market-driven co-operation. We are committed to working with Clearstream on future developments that increase efficiency and liquidity, while reducing risk for the market.”
Jeffrey Tessler, Chief Executive Officer, Clearstream, said: “Today's joint announcement is testament to the efforts of both Euroclear Bank and Clearstream to meet the needs of global clients across multiple time zones.
This programme of improvements will benefit clients by allowing them to use the infrastructure to efficiently support their trading and collateral management activities.”
Background
The ‘Bridge’ is an electronic communications platform that facilitates the efficient settlement of securities transactions between counterparties in Clearstream Banking Luxembourg and Euroclear Bank. The first electronic overnight Bridge was launched in 1993. Numerous upgrades to the Bridge have occurred periodically since its launch, evolving to the introduction of a supplementary, automated daytime Bridge in November 2004.
Euroclear Bank is the Brussels-based settlement-infrastructure service provider for domestic and international securities transactions covering bonds, equities and investment funds. Euroclear Bank is part of the Euroclear group of companies providing securities services to major financial institutions located in more than 80 countries. The Euroclear group also includes Euroclear Belgium, Euroclear France, Euroclear Nederland and CRESTCo, the central securities depositories of Belgium, France, the Netherlands, and the UK and Ireland, respectively.
Clearstream Banking Luxembourg is a subsidiary of Clearstream International, which offers a comprehensive settlement and custody service for equities and bonds both domestic and cross-border and investment funds to a global customer base. Clearstream International forms part of Deutsche Börse Group, the world’s largest exchange operations company when measured by market capitalisation. The combined group provides technology, services and products from trading and information products to clearing, settlement and custody based on straight-through processing and interoperability standards to all stages of the processing chain.
