VP has now applied for European passport

As banks can run their business with a European “passport” and thereby conduct business in the Eurozone, CSDs can now apply for a similar European license. VP is amongst the very first CSDs to apply for this CSDR license of its business, which reflects the fact that VP also is on track with its T2S project providing European functionality to its operational customers. A likely approval from Finanstilsynet (the Danish FSA) is expected from September 2017 and no later than end of 2017. For market participants this have a series of both operational and business effects, explains Head of Clearing & Settlement products Thomas Bo Christensen from VP:

“Already by 1 August we will implement the new reporting requirements from market participants to VP required under CSDR. Here and now it is static data like account information, legal entity identifier and bank identifier codes, and in two years it is also transaction data,” says Thomas Bo Christensen.

The intention of CSDR is both to harmonise the market for CSD services and to improve safety of settlement. For market participants this opens up for more cross border issuance and settlement as CSDs compete on a level playing field. Expected in 2019 is a new settlement regime with new penalties for market participants failing to deliver cash or securities.

“The application is just one small step on our journey to be the preferred CSD for the Nordic financial markets. We want to partner with market participants and deliver one single point of communications to other CSDs and to the harmonised processes in Europe”, says CEO Niels Olsen from VP.

The CSDR application itself describes all relevant operation processes and business principles at VP in detail, and it comprises of more than 2.000 pages divided in more than 120 documents.