SWIFT has been awarded a network service provider licence for all of the Eurosystem’s TARGET services.
The licence will enable SWIFT to provide connectivity services to market infrastructures via the European Single Market Infrastructure Gateway (ESMIG).
In migration to the ESMIG, the European Central Bank (ECB) is planning to consolidate all of their TARGET projects, with SWIFT as one of the main access points to all of these initiatives.
These include access to TARGET Instant Payment Settlement (TIPS), TARGET2 (T2) and TARGET2 Securities (T2S), as well as the incoming Eurosystem Collateral Management System (ECMS),
“We take our role in this major market infrastructure project very seriously and are already working with both the Eurosystem and our customers to raise market awareness about the tight timeline and to ensure a smooth and successful community migration,” said Alain Raes, CEO, EMEA and Asia-Pacific, SWIFT.
The ECB expects to launch its consolidated payments and securities settlement platform in November 2021.
The changes are intended to improve the integration of financial and capital markets across the EU, with a single gateway providing a more efficient means to access key market infrastructures, including clearing houses, central banks and central securities depositories (CSDs).