ECB: Piero Cipollone: Next-day securities settlement, tokenisation and the transformation of Europe’s financial infrastructure

The summary above is from the announcement ECB published on October 29, 2026.

What the announcement says

Keynote address by Piero Cipollone, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB, at an EU T+1 Industry Committee event on “One year to T+1”

We are approaching an important milestone.[1]

Less than a year from now, on 11 October 2027, Europe will move to T+1 settlement. This means that the time from the moment a security is traded to the moment the buyer receives it and the seller is paid will be reduced from two days to one.

This may sound like a technical change, but it is in fact much more significant.

The transition to T+1 is part of a broader transformation of Europe’s financial infrastructure. And the objective is clear: to make Europe’s financial and payment system more efficient, more resilient and safer, and ultimately to make European financial markets more competitive.

In the Eurosystem, we are contributing to this transformation across the full spectrum of our mandate.

We are ensuring that banknotes remain available and fit for purpose. We are preparing for a digital euro. We are modernising wholesale payments and securities settlement. And we are working to enhance cross-border payments and harness new technologies such as distributed ledger technology (DLT).[2]

These are not separate projects. They are different parts of the same strategy: ensuring that the euro and Europe’s financial markets are fit for the future in a rapidly changing world.

From T+2 to T+1: an essential element of a broader modernisation effort

The move to T+1 contributes to this broader strategy.

It is about more than just reducing the time between trade and settlement to one day.

A shorter settlement cycle can reduce market and counterparty risk.

But, perhaps even more importantly for Europe, the transition is also forcing us to review our post-trade processes. It requires greater standardisation, automation and innovation. Inefficiencies that could be accommodated in a T+2 environment will become much more difficult to sustain under T+1.

In that sense, T+1 is a catalyst for modernising European post-trade markets. And this is important for Europe’s competitiveness.

Efficient post-trade infrastructure makes it easier for capital to flow across borders. It helps investors access European markets. And it supports the EU’s wider ambition to create deeper and more integrated capital markets.

It also ensures that Europe keeps pace internationally with other major markets as they shorten their own settlement cycles.

That is why the ECB, together with the European Securities and Markets Authority and the European Commission, strongly supports the market’s preparations for T+1.

There is another lesson for Europe here which I believe is particularly important: we can deliver when we work together.

Europe’s financial landscape remains complex and fragmented. Yet the work coordinated by the EU T+1 Industry Committee has shown that those differences do not need to stand in the way of common solutions.

I would therefore like to congratulate everyone involved for the progress made so far. It is a powerful reminder of what Europe can achieve when public authorities and the private sector come together around a common objective.

But we have not yet crossed the finish line.

The coming months will be critical. Implementation and testing need to advance with the same determination and cooperation that have been the driving force behind the project so far.

The Eurosystem is also responsible for operating TARGET2-Securities (T2S), our platform for securities settlement in central bank money through which cash and securities can be exchanged simultaneously across Europe.[3]

And the key message here is a simple one: T2S already supports shorter settlement cycles. It already settles substantial volumes of transactions on a T+1 and even a T+0 basis.

ECB

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Read the full announcement on ECB

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