Update of the assessment of securities settlement systems in the euro area

In the context of the first assessment of relayed links, the Governing Council of the European Central Bank has updated the assessment of securities settlement systems (SSSs) eligible for the settlement of collateral for Eurosystem credit operations.

During the preparation of the relayed link assessment report, it was ascertained that Clearstream Banking Frankfurt AG (CBF) operates two separate SSSs (CASCADE and CREATION) but its CREATION system, although designated under the Settlement Finality Directive, was not part of the previous assessments carried out by the Eurosystem; nevertheless, the legal, technical and operational aspects had been addressed in other contexts. Consequently, an ad hoc update of the earlier assessments of CBF, taking full account of the existence of the two different SSSs that it operates, has been performed.

The assessment confirmed that both CASCADE and CREATION comply with the Eurosystem standards ^[1]. Consequently, both systems are considered eligible to participate in the collateralisation process of the Eurosystem’s credit operations.

The eligible SSSs and their settlement procedures are set out in the following table, which replaces the list published in a press release on 29 December 2006.