Mario Draghi: The TARGET2-Securities Framework Agreement

08 May 2012

Address by Mr Mario Draghi, President of the European Central Bank, at the event marking the first signatures to the T2S Framework Agreement. "T2S is important for Europe. It will be a major contribution to the strengthening of the Single Market."

The main reason for the Eurosystem to embark on this project was to address the costly fragmentation of securities settlement market infrastructure, and to achieve greater technical harmonisation in the European securities settlement market. T2S allows for efficient and integrated securities settlement.

The fundamental objective of T2S is to contribute to making Europe a better place to invest, by fostering a single market in post-trade services. It will make financial markets safer and more efficient, and it will increase transparency in the post-trade environment.

Europe’s new supervisory structure has been developed in acknowledgement of the fact that the financial system of the EU is now very much interconnected, and the externalities arising from it are no longer confined to the national level. There is also a comprehensive set of new legislation which aims to reform financial market regulation, covering not only the trading level, but also – for the first time – the infrastructure for clearing and settlement.

Full speech

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