Eurosystem Collateral Management System (ECMS) and Single Collateral Management Rulebook for Europe (SCoRE) Implementation

Clearstream’s ECMS Programme will implement collateral management harmonisation standards set by the Advisory Group for Market Infrastructure for Securities Collateral (AMI-SeCo) Single Collateral Management Rulebook for Europe (SCoRE) and facilitate triparty collateral management with central banks via the European Central Bank's (ECB) ECMS platform.

Current plans are to implement both – SCoRE and ECMS in April 2024.

This area of the website contains information covering such topics as:

  • Overview on ECMS and SCoRE
  • Impact of SCoRE and ECMS on Clearstream Services
  • Key information and contact details for Clearstream customers

Overview on ECMS and SCoRE

The ECMS will be implemented by the 19 National Central Banks (NCB) of the countries, which have adopted the euro, to replace their current local collateral management systems.

In parallel, the Collateral Management Harmonisation Task Force (CMH-TF) of the Advisory Group for Market Infrastructure for Securities Collateral (AMI-SeCo) has identified ten areas for harmonisation within collateral management.

To monitor this harmonisation process, four dedicated Expert Groups (EG) were created which are:

  • Bilateral Collateral Management EG: The group has analysed activities on bilateral collateral management, margin calls, cut-off times and sourcing of collateral.
  • Triparty Collateral Management EG: The group has analysed any questions related to the development of the single triparty model with a focus on messaging.
  • Asset Servicing EG: The group has analysed issues related to corporate actions (focus on equities). If needed, questions on billing processes will also be analysed.
  • Taxation Processes EG: The group was responsible for reviewing taxation processes (relevant to collateral management and asset servicing).

The output of these Expert Groups is consolidated into the AMI-SeCo SCoRE, made up of various standard documents which are published on the ECB website.

The standards have already been agreed for the three of the Collateral Management Harmonisation areas:

  • Triparty Collateral Management (TPA);
  • Corporate Actions (CA); and
  • Billing Processes.

Clearstream is a Member of the CMH-TF, that formulates and monitors the implementation of the SCoRE standards and is also a key contributor within each of the Expert Groups.

Impact of SCoRE and ECMS on Clearstream services

The new SCoRE standards set by AMI-SeCo and the implementation of ECMS mean that some changes are required to comply and operate within the new environment.

The SCoRE standards will implement specific changes in areas such as triparty collateral management, corporate actions and billing as well as the introduction of the new ISO 20022 messaging standard based on new data structures. For corporate actions processing and triparty collateral management, Clearstream Banking will continue to support ISO 15022 message standards for its customers, while developing ISO 20022 concurrently, in order to comply with SCoRE.

Clearstream Banking expects to comply with the SCoRE standards wherever possible and facilitate the migration to ECMS by the targeted launch date, while making every effort to minimise the impact on customers during these changes.

All customers, including issuers and issuer agents, will be required to review potential impact to a greater or lesser extent, however Clearstream Banking is already compliant with many of the new current standards, limiting such impact to customers. Those customers, who are also Eurosystem counterparties, will be most impacted by collateral management changes. However, all customers may be impacted by changes to corporate actions processes.

If customers do not use a TPA for collateral management, and intend to communicate directly with the ECMS, message exchange with ECMS will need to be based on ISO 20022 message standards. Further information can be obtained from the customers’ national central bank.

Detailed information on the upcoming changes is included within the Functional Specifications document “Implementation of SCoRE Standards and readiness for ECMS - Functional specifications”.

Customer information sessions

Clearstream Banking is holding customer information sessions starting in Q2 2023 which cover additional information such as:

  • ECMS and SCoRE timeline;
  • Functional Specifications presentation;
  • Customer testing and migration information; and
  • Additional customer relevant topics.

Details on the timeline and access to information sessions will be provided here in due course.

Key information

Implementation date: April 2024

Contact: ECMS.Programme@clearstream.com

Publications:

CBF accounts

CBL or CBF-i accounts

Announcements

C22030: Fortschritte beim AMI-SeCo Single Collateral Management Rulebook for Europe und Eurosystem Collateral Management System - August 2022

C22030: Progress on AMI-SeCo Single Collateral Management Rulebook for Europe and Eurosystem Collateral Management System - August 2022  


Functional specifications

Implementation of SCoRE Standards and readiness for ECMS - Functional specifications

Further customer readiness documents will be added in due course.