SIA-Colt to Connect Monte Titoli to T2S

SIA, in partnership with Colt, has won the tender to connect Monte Titoli to TARGET2-Securities (T2S).
By Janet Du Chenne(59204)
SIA, in partnership with Colt, has won the tender to connect Monte Titoli to TARGET2-Securities (T2S).

Monte Titoli, which boasts a large pool of international customers including over 400 banks and brokers and offers services to more than 2,000 issuers, will be taking part in the first phase of migration to T2S, scheduled for June 2015. That means SIA and Colt expect most of the transactions generated by banks and CSDs taking part in the first “wave” of migration to T2S will be carried on their network infrastructure.

In addition, SIA and Colt will also provide a message broker solution based on the “Smart Integrator Advanced” platform, which will facilitate the integration of business applications to the T2S central platform.

Last year, the European Central Bank (ECB) granted one of the two licenses as Network Service Provider for T2S, to SIA and Colt, mainly due to the technology leadership of the two companies in the financial services sector, their strong presence across Europe and an outstanding track record in delivering and operating mission critical infrastructures.

Recently, SIA and Colt have successfully completed the Eurosystem Network Acceptance Test phase foreseen in the License Agreement. This achievement completes a milestone in the T2S Programme Plan almost one month ahead of schedule.

SIA and Colt’s network architecture permits CSDs, Eurozone national central banks and the main bank groups operating in Europe to connect to the new platform to settle securities transactions.

T2S, a project promoted by the ECB which will be managed by four central banks (Banca d’Italia, Deutsche Bundesbank, Banque de France and Banco de Espana), is one of the initiatives for the creation of the single European financial market following the Euro, TARGET2, SEPA (Single Euro Payments Area) and PSD (Payment Services Directive).

“The decision by Monte Titoli to call on the support of SIA in the migration from the current domestic platform to T2S strengthens our collaboration with London Stock Exchange Group as its partner of choice also for post-trading and confirms SIA’s role as a competitive player in Europe,” commented Massimo Arrighetti, CEO of SIA.

“With this significant success within T2S, we are proud to strengthen our collaboration with SIA. Colt’s consolidated experience in the financial industry, its international network and long-time relationship with LSE, have been fundamental to the connection of Monte Titoli to Target2Securities”, stated Hugh Cumberland, Financial Services Solutions Manager, Colt.

The scale of the project has prompted customers to look beyond normal connectivity solutions, adds Cumberland. “It’s a big project – it requires a lot of extra resource and careful management and anything they can give to us so they can trust us to reduce their workload is a good thing,” he says. “We have the standard offering for network connectivity but customers have talked to us about managing their file and message channel in terms of validation and translating messages and validating signatures on messages and also compressing in order to use less network bandwith and we were able to offer our customers a product that SIA actually developed – the Smart Integrator -that does all of those things and more.”

Alessandro Di Michele, Monte Titoli says: “Monte Titoli will be the largest CSD participating in the first wave of T2S, due to go live in 2015, which will provide our customers access to a more harmonized, cost-efficient, settlement process”.

The news follows the announcement last week that Fondo Strategico Italiano (FSI), the investment vehicle of Cassa Depositi e Prestiti in Italy, has bought 42.3% of SIA for an investment of approximately €204 million, in addition to €77 million in debt financing.SIA, in partnership with Colt, has won the tender to connect Monte Titoli to TARGET2-Securities (T2S).

Monte Titoli, which boasts a large pool of international customers including over 400 banks and brokers and offers services to more than 2,000 issuers, will be taking part in the first phase of migration to T2S, scheduled for June 2015. That means SIA and Colt expect most of the transactions generated by banks and CSDs taking part in the first “wave” of migration to T2S will be carried on their network infrastructure.

In addition, SIA and Colt will also provide a message broker solution based on the “Smart Integrator Advanced” platform, which will facilitate the integration of business applications to the T2S central platform.

Last year, the European Central Bank (ECB) granted one of the two licenses as Network Service Provider for T2S, to SIA and Colt, mainly due to the technology leadership of the two companies in the financial services sector, their strong presence across Europe and an outstanding track record in delivering and operating mission critical infrastructures.

Recently, SIA and Colt have successfully completed the Eurosystem Network Acceptance Test phase foreseen in the License Agreement. This achievement completes a milestone in the T2S Programme Plan almost one month ahead of schedule.

SIA and Colt’s network architecture permits CSDs, Eurozone national central banks and the main bank groups operating in Europe to connect to the new platform to settle securities transactions.

T2S, a project promoted by the ECB which will be managed by four central banks (Banca d’Italia, Deutsche Bundesbank, Banque de France and Banco de Espana), is one of the initiatives for the creation of the single European financial market following the Euro, TARGET2, SEPA (Single Euro Payments Area) and PSD (Payment Services Directive).

“The decision by Monte Titoli to call on the support of SIA in the migration from the current domestic platform to T2S strengthens our collaboration with London Stock Exchange Group as its partner of choice also for post-trading and confirms SIA’s role as a competitive player in Europe,” commented Massimo Arrighetti, CEO of SIA.

“With this significant success within T2S, we are proud to strengthen our collaboration with SIA. Colt’s consolidated experience in the financial industry, its international network and long-time relationship with LSE, have been fundamental to the connection of Monte Titoli to Target2Securities”, stated Hugh Cumberland, Financial Services Solutions Manager, Colt.

Alessandro Di Michele, Monte Titoli says: “Monte Titoli will be the largest CSD participating in the first wave of T2S, due to go live in 2015, which will provide our customers access to a more harmonized, cost-efficient, settlement process”.

The news follows the announcement last week that Fondo Strategico Italiano (FSI), the investment vehicle of Cassa Depositi e Prestiti in Italy, has bought 42.3% of SIA for an investment of approximately €204 million, in addition to €77 million in debt financing.

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