The Bank of Greece has decided to introduce an on-line real-time settlement system for trades in Greek government fixed income securities. The system will cover trades on HDAT, Euro MTS, B-TEC and the OTC market. The service will be distributed to banks/participants in Bank of Greece, either through a web browser or through a HDAT screen application.
“All participants will be able to track on-line real-time, either through HDAT screen or Web, each trade that has already been sent to Bank of Greece for settlement, since it will have a code to reflect whether it is unmatched, matched, or matched with problems, such as insufficient cash or securities, or settled,” explains a spokeswoman for EFG Eurobank in Athens. “Transactions that are matched will be settled automatically and relevant information will be available on line by checking their status, and transactions can be prioritised for settlement or even flagged for settlement in specific time.”
EFG Eurobank adds that, in addition to the on-line real-time settlement system, Bank of Greece is likely to run three netting settlement cycles – one in the morning in order to provide liquidity, one at noon, and one at the end of the day. “Bank of Greece will not send confirmation to the custodian banks and participants for transactions settled on-line real-time, but will send Swift MT535 overall after each additional settlement cycle,” explains the spokeswoman. “The MT535 will include transactions settled till then on-line real-time plus transactions which were settled within the relevant additional settlement cycle.”
The Bank of Greece will test internally the first version of the on-line real-time settlement system later this month, with a view to going live as soon as possible. Participants can expect the service to be launched in the first quarter of 2005.