As the daylight hours fade this winter, Euroclear UK & International (EUI) is gearing up for an all-nighter, and the whole market is invited to the party.
From the end of November, EUI will stay open until 11pm and reopen at 2am, giving firms more time for people to input and match transactions. Charlie Pugh, business lead for T+1 at EUI, outlined the change on a panel at a UK Accelerated Settlement Taskforce (AST) and DTCC event held in partnership with Euroclear last week.
The extended hours, Pugh explained, are being rolled out to assist firms ahead of the switch to T+1, providing additional support for organisations across APAC and other regions more adversely affected by time zones.
With less than a year to go until the transition, he urged firms to start using the new hours early. “By launching in November this year, it gives you a year to actually get used to it,” he said. “You don’t have to start in November, but there’s no point in waiting until 11 October 2027. Start using the tools that you have now in a safe T+2 environment where you have the extra time to iron out the wrinkles,” said Pugh, adding: “Come on in, join the party – the water’s lovely.”
Pugh also outlined other work under way, with Euroclear reportedly developing functionality for its clients to utilise predictive AI in the settlement process.
“It’s predicting what will happen and being able to assess failing transactions as quickly as possible. That’s being rolled out in Euroclear Bank towards the end of this year. Euroclear UK’s information will be available in it next year.”
The corporate actions conundrum
Richard Nichols, who leads Morgan Stanley’s London asset services team and the AST’s asset services workstream, is focused on buyer protection. His workstream aims to move the buyer protection deadline forward by 24 hours, so that investors who trade in the final trade cycle of a corporate action offer period can still take part.
Buyer protection, Nichols explained, “is when a buyer can pass through their corporate action preference on an unsettled trade” within an industry-agreed timeframe. While Nichols acknowledged that the UK has “a tried and trusted buyer protection mechanism within the CREST system”, he noted that in some cases, T+1 will “actually take us further away from perfect”.
The workstream is also looking at guardrails to make the process as operationally robust as possible for participants, Nichols added. A consultation paper on the proposal was published on the day of the panel.
Nichols is also working with receiving agents, issuers and regulators on market deadlines for in-scope events. “What we need to get to is a later deadline,” he said. “Accelerated settlement is great. The bit that scares me is [the] accelerated part.”
Under T+2, corporate actions teams know what will settle a day or two before the market deadline, which gives them around 15 hours to complete their tasks, he explained. Under T+1, “they’re going to know in the morning [of the] market deadline”.
Pugh added that Euroclear is working on developments related to the corporate actions segment.
Less than a year to ‘iron out the wrinkles’
The deadline is not just a UK one, with the EU and Switzerland also due to move to T+1 on 11 October 2027.
On 16 October, ESMA said the EU’s regulatory framework is now complete, after publishing amended regulatory technical standards on settlement discipline and revised guidelines on standardised procedures and messaging protocols.
ESMA chair Verena Ross called T+1 “one of the most impactful recent market structure initiatives” and said the framework is now in place. The regulator is calling on market participants to finalise technical preparations and “begin testing as soon as possible throughout the trading and settlement chain”.
The first EU milestone is now weeks away: from 7 December 2026, investment firms and their clients must comply with new requirements on allocations and confirmations.