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European Central Bank: advancing financial market integration

11:02 22 mei in Speeches
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Speech by Yves Mersch, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB, at the Government Borrowers Forum organised by the World Bank, Luxembourg, 18 May 2017

To foster European financial integration, the ECB has set sail under the European flag. And we will continue our journey towards European financial integration. Today, in this respect, I’d like to make three key points.

1. We need to better explore the potential of our integrated financial market infrastructure for securities. T2S has integrated the securities settlement business, bringing the economies of scale it needs. Therefore we welcome the announcement of the international central securities depositories (ICSDs) to bring Eurobonds (not to be confused with EU sovereign debt bonds) to T2S for settlement.

2. In the EU, issuance has remained a largely domestic business, often as a result of legacy structures and national rules. In a true single market, one could expect a Europe-wide primary market for securities to develop in order to ensure equal and unrestricted access for economic actors. We stand ready to examine the need for and potential of such a European issuance service together with potential users.

3. On central counterparty (CCP) clearing, we must consider whether recent geopolitical events require the Eurosystem to take action to ensure that we continue to adequately control the impact of offshore clearing activities on the stability of our common currency.

To read the full speech, click here.