Euroclear announces the successful launch of the ESES (Euroclear Settlement for Euronext-zone Securities) platform in France. This is an important milestone in consolidating the securities-transaction processing platforms of the Belgian, Dutch and French central securities depositories (CSDs) onto one system for both domestic and cross-border transactions.
ESES will process transactions according to EU-wide agreed harmonized rules and practices, and is a major step forward by the private sector in removing the barriers identified by the Giovannini Group. It will also support NYSE Euronext’s Single Order Book for transactions emanating from the Amsterdam, Brussels and Paris bourses.
Euroclear also announces today that it will put in place a harmonized tariff for the processing of all settlement, custody and related transactions involving equity, fixed-income and other securities from the three ESES CSDs. As a result, it is estimated that CSD clients will save a total of more than EUR 15 million, or 10% per year, once all the CSD platforms migrate to ESES in 2008. Once the Single Platform is launched in 2010, it is expected that clients will benefit from tariff savings of EUR 50 million (a reduction of 20%) and above EUR 60 million (or a 25% reduction) by 2012, in line with predicted volume growth. Altogether, the Single Platform will deliver annual savings of EUR 300 million to clients.
“The launch of ESES in France is testament to the diligent work done by our project, business and operational teams in close cooperation with clients. ESES is an excellent illustration of what can be achieved through extensive and fruitful consultation with the market. In less than a year, Euroclear will deliver a single, harmonised transaction-processing solution so that Belgium, France and the Netherlands will operate as a single market. We are already well advanced in our plans to include the UK and Irish markets, as well as those markets served by Euroclear Bank. Thus, a single post-trading market for Europe is becoming a reality,” said Pierre Francotte, Chief Executive Officer of Euroclear SA/NV.
ESES builds on the Single Settlement Engine and combines important payment, custody and communications features from Euroclear’s Single Platform and Common Communications Interface that will be rolled out across the Euroclear group. ESES, an interim solution until the Single Platform is completed, includes temporary adaptations of RGV, the realtime settlement platform of Euroclear France. It also marks the discontinuance of Relit+, Euroclear France’s revocable settlement system.
This first stage of ESES will be followed in February 2008 by connecting ESES to Target2, the new euro payment system launched by the euro-zone’s national central banks under the supervision of the European Central Bank. The third and final phase of ESES will be completed when the Belgian and Dutch CSDs migrate to ESES next year.
Euroclear is the world's largest provider of domestic and cross-border settlement and related services for bond, equity, derivatives and fund transactions. User owned and user governed, the Euroclear group comprises the international central securities depository (CSD) Euroclear Bank, based in Brussels, as well as national CSDs Euroclear Belgium, Euroclear France, Euroclear Nederland and Euroclear UK & Ireland. In early 2007, Euroclear acquired EMXCo, the UK’s leading provider of investment-fund order routing. The total value of securities transactions settled by the Euroclear group is in excess of EUR 450 trillion per annum, while assets held for clients are valued at more than EUR 18 trillion. Euroclear Bank is rated AA+ by Standard & Poor's and Fitch Ratings.