Technical Problems Force T2S Delay for Monte Titoli

Despite assurances from the ECB that TARGET2-Securities will launch in 10 days, the Italian CSD Monte Titoli is understood to be delaying its go live until late August.

Despite assurances from the ECB that TARGET2-Securities will launch in 10 days, the Italian CSD Monte Titoli is understood to be delaying its go live until late August.

According to one source, the Italian market will not go live on June 22 due to technical problems. It is understood it will most likely go live on August 31. 

The harmonised settlement platform for Eurozone securities is looking to migrate five CSDs of Greece (for government debt), Switzerland, Malta, Italy and Romania in the first wave in two weeks time.

The ECB tested the platform and at the end of May, and the T2S board found the assets on the Eurosystems' side were efficient and stable enough to go live on June 22, despite a request from a group of Italian banks requesting for a delay.

However, speaking at the NeMA conference in Athens on Wednesday, the ECB’s Marc Bayle said the bank was now collecting information to assess the readiness of its customers. On the central bank side it is ready to go, he said.

On the CSD side some question remains on whether the June 22 date is feasible and it was therefore considering a “staggered” approach to wave 1 to ensure the safest environment is in place.

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