OREANDA-NEWS.  July 05, 2012. The Estonian Central Estonian Central Register of Securities (ECSD) and Eesti Pank signed an accession contract to the securities settlement platform TARGET2-Securities, which will make cross-border securities transactions faster, cheaper and more secure in 2015, reported the press-centre of Eesti Pank.

The framework contract will be followed by preparations for the connection to the central platform. These include, besides the central bank and the ECRS, also commercial banks - professional participants in the securities market.

On 21 June, the Estonian Central Register of Securities, which is Estonian CSD, decided to accede to the securities settlement system TARGET2-Securities. The contract was signed with Eesti Pank on behalf of the Eurosystem. Informal discussions between the Ministry of Finance, Eesti Pank and the ECRS regarding the accession started already in 2007.

The trans-European centralised securities settlement platform TARGET 2 Securities will be launched in summer 2015. By end-June 2012, the CSDs in Europe must announce whether or not they are going to accede to the new platform. The objective of the platform is to make trading in securities in the euro area more uniform, making the settlement of securities easier and cheaper and providing investors with the opportunity of having access to more securities.

Nine CSDs acceded to TARGET2-Securities at the start of May, and the number is set to increase by the end of this month.

The Estonian Central Register of Securities is the main register of the state, which administers share registers of all joint stock companies operating in Estonia and all securities and pension accounts opened in Estonia. Maintainer of the register is the Estonian CSD, which is owned by NASDAQ OMX Tallinn.

The owners of the central platform TARGET2-Securities are euro area central banks and its operational functioning will be the responsibility of the central banks of Germany, Spain, France and Italy. The platform will be launched in summer 2015.