Launch of a public consultation on TARGET2-Securities

As indicated in its announcement of 8 March 2007 on the feasibility of the TARGET2-Securities (T2S) project, the European Central Bank (ECB) is today publishing, for public consultation, the T2S user requirements and the methodology for the assessment of the economic impact of T2S.

The T2S user requirements were drawn up by the T2S Advisory Group, which received considerable support from six technical groups and the ECB’s T2S Project Team, as well as drawing on the expertise of a large number of professionals in national communities. The user requirements consist of a management summary, 21 chapters describing the features of T2S and 17 annexes explaining specific T2S concepts and functionalities.

The methodology for the economic impact assessment describes the approach that the Eurosystem intends to adopt in order to calculate the costs, benefits and macroeconomic impact of T2S.

The Eurosystem is inviting market participants to comment on both documents by 2 April 2008 at the latest. In May 2008 the T2S Advisory Group will assess the comments received during the public consultation, with a proposal for the final T2S user requirements being submitted to the Governing Council shortly thereafter. At that stage, the Governing Council will decide on whether or not to move to the next phase of the T2S project.

Further information can be found in the above-mentioned documents. Any comments received will be published on the ECB’s website, unless it is clear that the author does not consent to such publication. Comments should be submitted in English or the relevant Community language and sent either to the ECB at the following address:

European Central BankSecretariat DivisionKaiserstrasse 29D-60311 Frankfurt am MainGermanyFax: +49 69 1344 6170E-mail: ecb.secretariat@ecb.int

or to the relevant national central bank of the Eurosystem.