Euroclear Finland – Transition approach for Infinity Release 2

In this annoucement, Clearstream Banking AG, Frankfurt¹ summarises the requirements related to the implementation of Euroclear Finland’s (EFI) Infinity Release 2. Following Announcement D18010, the schedule foresees a launch on

7 May 2018

with a backup date on 21 May 2018.

On 16 April 2018, the Finnish Market Advisory Committee (MAC) of Euroclear Finland and Euroclear Finland will decide on the implementation details.

Infinity Release 2 will provide key elements for the migration to TARGET2-Securitis (T2S). In particular, details in a settlement instruction will be compliant with the T2S matching criteria. Until the migration from EFI to T2S, not all functionalities offered by T2S  will be available, for example the partial settlement functionality.

Future operation

The existing interoperability link between CBF and CBL using the depository account “4496 CBF W/CBL-AUSLAENDISCHE WERTE” remains unchanged. Only the market deadline for the transmission of instructions will be modified according to specifications provided by EFI:

Customers can set up their instructions as designed for CBF’s migration with T2S Wave 4. The counterparty details can be entered as described in the CBF handbooks. The account numbers will be updated by EFI, for this reason CBF customers should contact their counterparties in the Finnish market to check whether the existing standing instructions need to be changed.

Customers are reminded, that the “Opt-Out” and “Cum/Ex” indicators are processed by EFI for matching purposes. Further processing is based on the rules in the Finnish market. Hence,  customers should agree with their counterparties on the settlement procedure for the relevant trades before using the qualifiers “Opt-Out” or “Cum/Ex”.

Transition activities

The deployment plan for the launch date of Infinity Release 2 is currently being agreed on. EFI received permission⁴ from the central banks to close their environment on Friday, 4 May at 12:00².

The cutover procedure requires the cancellation of pending instructions at CBF. The cancellation will be required by Friday, 4 May 2018, 09:00. Customers should be prepared to provide their cancellation requests to CBF in due time. Cancelled instructions can be re-entered on Monday, 7 May 2018, after the T2S maintenance window has been completed. Customers should consider that the indicated time depends on the progress of the deployment activities.

From 7 May to 14 May 2018, final implementation activites will be conducted. Therefore, CBF customers must not transmit or enter instructions with the following details:

• In the status “pre-advise” (PREA)
  These instructions cannot be forwarded to the EFI platform. They will remain pending and must be cancelled by the CBF customer;
• With an “Opt-Out” or “Cum/Ex” indicator
  These instructions will not be properly processed in the corporate action processing; if applicable.

Next steps

CBF will inform customers if the release is deployed on the backup date (21 May 2018) or further into the future.

Contact

For further information related to this announcement, customers may contact Clearstream Banking Client Services or their Relationship Officer. Particular questions related to this Release Information will be routed to the experts of the T2S Settlement Functionality team.

Please note that after the successful transition period our Client Services teams will be responsible for any questions of the customers pertaining to production processes.

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1. This Announcement is published by Clearstream Banking AG (CBF), registered office at Mergenthalerallee 61, 65760 Eschborn, Germany, registered with the Commercial Register of the District Court in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, under number HRB 7500.
2. All times are in Central European Summer Time (CEST).
3. SD stands for Settlement Day.
4. This is also valid for the backup date 21 May 2018 with a closure of the settlement envirorment on Friday, 18 May 2018 at 12:00.