OREANDA-NEWS. 280 delegates of 12th International Forum of Central Securities Depositories (CSD12), who represented 70 countries, summed up the results of the forum’s work.

In particular, on 29 May, the participants of the meeting of the World Forum of CSDs (WFC) approved the basic management principles of WFC, an informal union of five regional CSD associations. Eddie Astanin, Chairman of Executive Board, National Settlement Depository (NSD), Russian’s central securities depository, has been appointed the Chairman of WFC.

Eddie Astanin, commenting on his appointment, said: “WFC is a promising format for bilateral cooperation of the associations and CSDs allowing to hold extensive discussions and solve problems emerging in the global financial market.

I am happy to point out that the forum was successful. Its results confirm that we are on the right track. I mean our strategic goal to form a regional center of liquidity integrated in the global network of central securities depositories. This approach is supported by our foreign partners.”

The next CSD conference, the WFC 2015 Global Conference of Central Securities Depositories, will be held by the Americas' Central Securities Depositories Association (ACSDA) in April 2015 in Mexico.

The global forum of central securities depositories is held once every two years, each time in a different country, and represents a unique and prestigious opportunity for the exchange of experiences and discussion of new challenges and opportunities in the post-trading sector where CSDs play the key role. Among the delegates of the forum are representatives of regulators, central banks, providers of services, international banks and custodians as well as other professional stock market participants.

This was the first time the Association of Eurasian Central Securities Depositories (AECSD), an organization representing the central depositories of the CIS countries, had played host to this global conference. The Administration of St Petersburg was a co-organizer of CSD12. National Settlement Depository (NSD), Russia's central securities depository, a part of Moscow Exchange Group, was responsible for general administration of the CSD12 project. The CSD12 Steering Committee formed by AECSD more than three years ago included representatives of Russia, Belarus, Belgium, UK, Canada, Uzbekistan, South Africa and Japan.

CSD12 was supported by four other regional associations of central depositories: the European Central Securities Depositories Association (ECSDA), the Americas' Central Securities Depositories Association (ACSDA), the Africa & Middle East Depositories Association (AMEDA), and the Asia-Pacific Central Securities Depository Group (ACG). The World Forum of CSDs (WFC), an organization formed in 2011, was responsible for general coordination of the conference.

Apart from the WFC meeting, the conference’s program included more than 15 sessions and panel discussions dedicated to the topical issues of CSD functioning, as well as receptions held in St. Petersburg’s cultural spots where the delegates knew more about the city’s history.

The charitable program included the delegates’ visits to the Gorchakov School, non-governmental educational organization opened in Pavlovsk in 1999, and the Raisa Gorbacheva Memorial Institute of Children Hematology and Transplantation.

On 30 May, the delegates took part in the morning run at the stadium of the one of St. Petersburg Olympic Reserve Schools.

Russia’s NSD was the event’s host sponsor, SWIFT (Belgium) is the conference’s platinum sponsor; KACD (CSD of Kazakhstan), Thomas Murray (UK) and Tata Consultancy Services (India) are the forum’s gold sponsors. Among the silver sponsors were AMEDA, China Central Depository and Clearing, Clearstream (Luxembourg), ECSDA, JASDEC (Japan) and KSD (Republic of Korea). Euroclear (Belgium), Millenium IT (Sri Lanka) NASDAQ OMX (Sweden) were bronze sponsors of the event.