On 22 June 2015, the Eurosystem successfully launched TARGET2-Securities (T2S), the pan-European platform for securities settlement transactions in central bank money.
The platform provides integrated settlement of domestic and cross-border securities transactions and of related funds via securities accounts opened and managed on the platform by connected central depositories, and via dedicated cash accounts (DCAs) opened and managed on the platform by the national central banks. Thus, cross-border securities transactions within the European Union will be settled under the same conditions as the domestic ones.
Although T2S mainly settles euro-denominated securities transactions of the central depositories within the European Union, it also allows the settlement of transactions in other currencies upon request from the central depositories and central banks outside the euro area and provided that the national systems of large-value payments are amended accordingly. So far, only the central bank of Denmark has expressed the intention to allow its currency settlement (i.e. the Danish krone) on the T2S platform and will therefore connect to the T2S platform in 2018.
T2S is operated by the Eurosystem and uses a shared technical platform provided by four central banks, namely the three central banks that provide the technical infrastructure of the TARGET2 system (Deutsche Bundesbank, Banca d’Italia, Banque de France) and Banco de España.
The migration of the participants to T2S (central depositories, financial institutions and central banks) is performed gradually, between June 2015 and September 2017, five main periods of migration (“migration waves”) being set in this regard.
At the present time, central depositories from 21 European countries are connected to the platform. Depozitarul Central S.A. from Romania has connected to the T2S platform starting with 2015. Together with Depozitarul Central S.A., Banca Naţională a României, as operator of the national component of the pan-European TARGET2 payment system has also connected to the platform, opening and managing DCAs on the T2S platform.
In România, 7 credit institutions have opened DCAs on the T2S platform.
The opening and operation of the DCAs is governed by the legal framework applicable to the TARGET2 payment system, transposed into the national legislation by Order of the National Bank of Romania No. 4/2015 (Romanian only) on the functioning of the TARGET2-România payment system.