National Central Banks (NCBs)

The Eurosystem is the owner of T2S and will operate it on a non-profit basis to the benefit of all European market participants. The Eurosystem central banks are therefore key stakeholders in the project.

The central banks of the euro area will also be users of the services offered by T2S. The NCBs will hold central bank money accounts for CSD customers on the T2S platform, to ensure that the delivery-versus-payment settlement of securities transactions can take place in central bank money. These accounts will be dedicated to settlement purposes only and will be linked to the cash accounts in the respective RTGS systems. For the settlement in euro, for instance, the T2S platform will be linked to the TARGET2 system, also operated by the Eurosystem.
To know more about how T2S works, see also the T2S Animation video.

T2S will allow the central bank money settlement of securities transactions not only in euro but also against other currencies. This is important to ensure that the market can maximise the benefits that T2S will bring from integrating settlement not only in the euro area but across the whole of the EU and beyond.

Discussions are ongoing between the Eurosystem and a number of non-euro area NCBs about their possible participation in T2S with the respective currencies (NCB responses). In particular, the NCBs of Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Switzerland and the United Kingdom are assessing internally and with their market participants the option to authorise central bank money settlement in their local currencies to take place in T2S. Such a possibility is also under discussion with some non-Eurosystem NCBs that are already scheduled to adopt the euro in future but might consider temporarily joining T2S with their national currencies.

The contractual basis for their participation in T2S will be defined in the Currency Participation Agreement, i.e. the contractual arrangement to be signed in 2011. The Task Force on the Currency Participation Agreement was set up to support the T2S Programme Board in identifying, analysing and preparing the resolution of the issues necessary for the signature of the contract.

All NCBs that have signalled an interest in T2S are involved in the project’s governance, both at the European and national level, most prominently in the T2S Advisory Group and its substructures and in the National User Groups.

NCBs - as well as CSDs and other directly connected parties - will interact with the T2S platform by sending and receiving messages via a network. Network services will be supplied by a number of competing providers selected through a Eurosystem-led licensing procedure. T2S will act as an interface with each of the chosen providers and the connected participants will decide which of these they wish to use. more