ECB responds to queries about T2S 11 May 2018Frankfurt Reporter: Brian Bollen
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The European Central Bank has responded to requests for clarification of reports that it would be raising fees for access to its TARGET2Securities (T2S) platform.
A list of publications and extracts reviewing T2S pricing include a reference to the ECB’s 2017 T2S annual report, which said: “In March 2012, the T2S Programme Board clarified the platform’s pricing policy by emphasising that it did not intend to propose revising the benchmark price of €0.15 per delivery-versus-payment (DVP) settlement instruction before 2019.”
This decision was made in order to foster stable volumes in T2S, with the intention of assessing the situation at a later date against certain conditions relating to actual usage and the recovery of development and implementation costs.
The ECB stated in its 2017 report: “With the volumes settled on the T2S platform in 2017 remaining below the projected levels, it will be necessary to review the price of €0.15 per DVP settlement instruction in 2019.”
This price was set in November 2010 by the ECB’s Governing Council and fixed to December 2018.
The Governing Council also made a commitment not to increase T2S fees by more than 10 percent per year between 2019 and the end of the period scheduled for the recovery of the project’s cost, September 2022.
The ECB’s review of T2S in 2017 included a section noting that in November 2021, the consolidation of TARGET2 and T2S will go live, bringing about the technical and functional consolidation of the Eurosystem’s payment and securities settlement services.
The report said that that project will improve the operational efficiency of TARGET Services by enhancing monitoring and increasing the level of automation in operational activities, though consequently, such consolidation will reduce T2S’s operational costs.
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