Hanna Vainio, CEO Euroclear Finland:
In 2023, the Finnish market will meet the biggest change in recent years when joining the Target 2 Securities platform.
Season's greetings from Euroclear Finland
Now that the year draws to a close, it is time to look back and reflect on a year that has, in many ways, been a very different and challenging one. The world has been slowly recovering from the disruptions and global problems caused by the pandemic.
In February the world watched in horror as the war in Ukraine unfolded, shaking the foundations of international peace and causing a humanitarian crisis not witnessed in decades. Now at the end of the year, we are deeply saddened to see that the war in Ukraine continues, causing enormous human suffering as well as having serious economic implications that are felt on a global scale, casting a dark and worrying shadow on our everyday work and life.
The sanctions imposed by the EU Commission on Russia in response to the military aggression have been on an unprecedented scale and have impacted on the whole European financial market. We are closely following the development of the sanction packages and continue to comply with the regulations that pertain to Central Securities Depositories and at the same time do our utmost to help our clients to comply with the sanctions on their part.
The war in Ukraine, the sanctions and the continued economic uncertainty has caused energy prices to soar to unprecedented highs, the prices on most commodities continue to climb and we’re seeing a steady rise of interest rates, including the recent announcement of the European Central Bank (ECB) to raise interest rates in an effort to curb record inflation in the EU.
In a world of uncertainty, we can and should however focus on the actions that we can all take to bring about positive change and development. Sustainability and ESG are at the heart of our new Euroclear Corporate Purpose, and we want to deliver and be part of a strengthened ESG-mindset across the Group. Every decision we take, no matter how big or now small, should be viewed through the prism of its impact on society and/or the environment.
The Euroclear Group is focused on strengthening our ESG strategy to align with stakeholder expectations, market developments and regulatory requirements and on ensuring that we contribute towards achieving the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
Sustainable finance is at the core of what we do and we are continuously working on our ambition to facilitate and accelerate a sustainable financial system and to build a climate resilient business. At Euroclear we also aim to be an employer of choice by fostering a healthy, inclusive environment and attracting, developing and upskilling staff for the future needs of the financial markets. All of this work is now even more important in a world full of disruptions, apprehension and continued upheaval.
For Euroclear Finland, there have been many highlights throughout the year, including our production system’s uptime, which has been nearly 100%. We have continued our preparations towards next year’s big milestone: joining the European securities settlement platform TARGET2-Securities (T2S) in September 2023. Community testing is now ongoing as scheduled, in close cooperation with our clients. In the beginning of December we had our second migration rehearsal that ended with a “Go-live” decision, and also volume testing is well on its way.
There have been some external delays, such as ECB’s T2-T2S consolidation date moving from November 2022 to April 2023 and the ECMS (Eurosystem Collateral Management System) date moving from November 2023 to April 2024, but after consulting the matter with our clients and discussing the timing with the ECB, I’m very happy to re-confirm that there is a firm commitment from all parties to keep our T2S migration date unchanged, in September 2023.
“Year 2023 will mark the final step on Finland’s journey towards a common European T2S securities settlement market.”
As always, we have continued the development of our services and based on issuer feedback Euroclear Finland has focused on Insider and Owner Information services. Pre-studies on the topics have confirmed the relevance of both services and highlighted areas for improvement and growth. As a start we have built a prototype video of Insider Services and arranged a Design Jam-day for our issuers to co-create our future Insider services. Encouraged by the success of the event, we will continue this co-development with our clients also next year.
Furthermore, we have had a possibility to build a proof of concept of a Holdings and Transactions API (Application Programming Interface) together with a pilot client. We intend to launch that API for pilot usage in production next year.
Our annual client survey has closed and we are currently analyzing the results. At first glance I’m very happy to see that we have been doing the right things, even if there’s always room for improvement. It is heartwarming and encouraging to see how actively you gave us feedback. Thank you!
All in all, it has been a pleasure to see how much cooperation and co-creation we have had this year with our clients and stakeholders. Now it is time to relax and enjoy the holiday season.
On behalf of all of Euroclear Finland management and staff, I would like to wish you all a peaceful holiday season and a Happy New Year 2023!
Hanna Vainio
CEO
Euroclear Finland
