Summer greetings from Euroclear Finland

The change is indeed historical: Finland will be joining T2S and will become the 20th European CSD on T2S. By joining, we will become part of a harmonized, safe and well-functioning European securities settlement landscape.

In the last 10 years, the core CSD system, called Infinity, has been replaced with a new system. From the standardization point of view, Infinity Release 2 launched in spring 2018 introduced a service level that is very close to the T2S environment. Therefore, the migration to T2S will have less impact on our CSD clients than the two previous releases.  

However, compared to today, T2S will bring longer opening days and times, nighttime settlement, liquidity accounts provided by the central bank and of course, settlement will take place in T2S, which will have a practical impact on how the post trade flows operate. With the Finnish migration, T2S will receive over two million new book-entry accounts to its platform. The migration will bring new features to our CSD clients and it will enable the Finnish market to join the new collateral setup, the Eurosystem Collateral Management System (ECMS), when it´s launched in April 2024. 

Joining T2S has been a long journey 

Over the last 10 years, Euroclear Finland has invested substantially in the development of the Finnish book-entry system to meet the common European standards and operating models. To make this migration possible, we have undertaken a comprehensive infrastructure renewal program, reforming not only our core system but also our processes and procedures to meet the requirements of the evolving European settlement landscape. I am very proud to say that Euroclear Finland now has one of the most advanced CSD systems in Europe. The journey has required extensive work and commitment not only from everyone at Euroclear Finland, but also our clients, the ECB/4CBs and other stakeholders. Now it’s time to secure the third and last phase of the journey, the T2S migration.

We have officially confirmed the beginning of our readiness to the ECB in June. Throughout 2023, we have worked closely with our participants on the community testing and the final migration rehearsal to ensure that everyone is ready. The process has required great efforts from all parties involved and I would like to take this opportunity to express my sincerest gratitude to everyone contributing to this transformation. Thank you!

While the work towards the migration continues, we have been looking into other topics as well. ESG is increasing expectations and focus also for financial market infrastructures. Euroclear focuses on what is material for us as a company and is in line with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. We are currently in the process of embedding our ESG policy locally. The Euroclear group sustainability report for 2022 has been published in May. With the ESG policy we want to fulfill our commitment to sustainability, including mitigating environmental impact, address possible social issues and maintain sound governance procedures. In addition, we are assessing how we could support our clients on ESG. 

After September, we are looking forward to a new era, as part of the ECB´s T2S platform, but day-to-day business will also continue and evolve as usual. In parallel, we have launched our new business strategy that focuses on developing new services. We plan to communicate and engage with clients on the strategy after the holidays, so stay tuned.

However, before the final leg of the T2S journey, I would like to wish everyone a relaxing summer. I hope you´re able to enjoy quality time with family and friends and recharge your batteries. 

Hanna Vainio
CEO
Euroclear Finland