CASCADE/T2S settlement cycles
CBF has outsourced the securities settlement in central bank money of transactions in German and international securities to the T2S platform provided by the Eurosystem. Within the securities settlement, T2S takes over the entry and the processing of instruction, the validation, the matching and the settlement of the transmitted instructions, the administration of positions as well as the reporting of transactions and of positions for the securities account on the T2S platform (SAC - Security Accounts). The settlement, i.e. the regulation of the security and cash side, therefore takes place directly on the T2S platform. For the cash side there are dedicated cash accounts (DCAs) available in T2S.
The instructions that are transmitted to T2S for settlement are delivery instructions resulting from over-the-counter (OTC) and stock exchange trading (Xetra, floor trading), clearing through Eurex Clearing AG (CCP), trading on the Eurex Bonds and Eurex Repo platforms and Eurex exercises. CASCADE supports cash settlement in EUR in T2S and in other currencies, especially in CHF through its link to the Swiss CSD.
Instructions transmitted to T2S are processed in different settlement cycles in T2S. For cash and securities settlement, T2S offers a sequential night-time processing (night-time settlement – NTS) with two cycles and up to two real-time processing cycles (real-time settlement – RTS).
The settlement timing slots in T2S are according to business days; the start of day for a new business day takes place at about 18:45 on the calendar day where the T2S business day ended. Settlement in T2S starts with the Night-time Settlement (NTS) at about 20:00 and ends with the Real-time Settlement at about 18:00.
Cash entries which result from securities settlement or from interest and redemption payments for German government bonds, as well as cross-border market and reverse claims for securities in Foreign Collective Safe Custody (FCSC), are booked on the DCA in T2S. Other cash bookings are processed separately in two processing cycles: Direct Debit 1 (DD1) and Direct Debit 2 (DD2). In addition, manually entered payments can be carried out in Direct Debit 3 (DD3).
Cash settlement for payments made in EUR takes place through T2S. The processing of against payment instructions in non-EUR currency differs as the cash leg is processed on Clearstream´s Creation platform.
Full information on the Settlement Cycles processed on CASCADE/T2S can be found in the CBF Customer Handbook.