UK Accelerated Settlement Taskforce

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Background

The UK Accelerated Settlement Taskforce was set up in December 2022 to examine the case for the securities settlement cycle to be shortened from its current standard of Trade Date plus 2 days, or ‘T+2’, to Trade Date plus 1 day or ‘T+1’.

The initial report, published in March 2024, recommended that the UK should commit to moving to a T+1 standard settlement cycle at the latest by the end of 2027.

It was recognised that a number of technical and operational changes would be necessary for the UK to be ready to move to T+1 and so the report also recommended that a new group – the Technical Group – be set up to determine the details of these necessary technical changes.

The report recommended that this group should select a specific date before the end of 2027 for the UK to transition to T+1.

The report recommended, that irrespective of the migration date to T+1, appropriate operational changes, such as market standards for allocations and confirmations and electronic processes for exchanging SSIs, should be mandated with effect from a date in 2025 to help prepare for T+1.

The report also suggested that the UK should engage with other European jurisdictions to see if it is practical to align similar moves to T+1 as well as taking account of the impact of the move to T+1 by North American markets (USA, Canada and Mexico) in May of 2024.

The UK government accepted all of the recommendations made in the “Accelerated Settlement Taskforce Report” and subsequently established the Accelerated Settlement Technical Group to carry out the next phase of the work.

The government has asked the Technical Group to produce a report with its findings and recommendations by the end of 2024. These recommendations may include actions for government, the UK financial services regulators and industry participants.