Fifth Progress Report on TARGET2

Following the publication of the fourth progress report on TARGET2 on 22 June 2007, the fifth progress report on TARGET2, published today, covers the Governing Council’s recent decisions concerning remaining operational issues. The report also includes the Information Guide for TARGET2 Users and the Information Guide for TARGET2 Pricing, and describes the communication events envisaged to accompany the new system when it goes live.

The overall project is very close to completion. Since publication of the last progress report, the Eurosystem has made significant progress in finalising the new TARGET system.

Testing and migration activities are at an advanced stage of completion and should allow TARGET2 to go live on Monday, 19 November 2007, with the first migration group (Germany, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxemburg, Malta, Austria and Slovenia). Activities for the connection of the two subsequent migration groups (on 18 February and 19 May 2008) are also progressing as planned, after which all national central banks and TARGET users will have migrated to TARGET2.