From Roadmap to Reality: EU and UK T+1 Transition Webinar

On February 26, ICI convened a webinar bringing together leading EU and UK experts to provide the latest developments on the transition to T+1 securities settlement in Europe and the United Kingdom. Nearly 100 participants joined the session, which was designed for ICI members and other market participants across the buy-side, trading, and post-trading ecosystem.

The webinar was moderated by ICI’s RJ Rondini (Senior Director, Securities Operations) and Corrado Camera (Senior Director, Public Policy and Regulation, Global Affairs) and featured Giovanni Sabatini, Chair of the EU T+1 Industry Committee, and Charles Pugh, Deputy to the Chair of the UK Accelerated Settlement Task Force, two senior implementation leaders managing the transition.

Key Takeaways

Momentum is building toward the October 11, 2027, deadline.

Speakers underscored the breadth of technical work underway across both jurisdictions and highlighted a key near-term milestone for cross-border coordination: a joint EU–UK T+1 Testing Plan expected in March 2026.

Early readiness data is encouraging, but implementation must be broad-based.

Discussion of the EU T+1 Industry Committee’s first implementation survey (1,000+ responses) suggested strong engagement across the market, including that 77% of respondents reported having reviewed the high-level roadmap. At the same time, the survey indicated uneven readiness across sectors and firm sizes, reinforcing the importance of broad participation and greater automation across the settlement chain. Speakers noted that Europe’s transition presents unique complexity compared with North America, given multiple markets and currencies and a more fragmented post-trade infrastructure.

Task forces are delivering concrete solutions to operational “pain points.”

Sabatini highlighted recent outputs from the Industry Committee’s task forces focused on three areas central to successful implementation:

• Standing Settlement Instructions (SSI): Paola Deantoni (Société Générale) and Emma Johnson (The Value Exchange), co-leads of the SSI Task Force, discussed measures to improve SSI quality and standardisation under T+1, including practices related to place of settlement (PSET), place of safekeeping (PSAF), SSI management and exchange, and transaction-type identifiers. 
• Partial Settlement: Jesús Sánchez (SIX Group), lead of the Partial Settlement Task Force, presented recommendations aimed at establishing common market practice to make partial settlement the default across European markets and encouraging early adoption. 
• SFT Optimisation: Marcello Topa (Citi Investor Services), co-lead of the SFT Optimisation Task Force, and Konstantina Travlou (LCH RepoClear) discussed proposals including a “gating event” intended to manage intraday liquidity consumption and improve settlement efficiency as markets transition to T+1. 

Looking ahead

Speakers emphasised that 2026 will be a pivotal year as firms of all sizes move from planning to implementation and testing. The EU T+1 Implementation Handbook was highlighted as a practical guide for market participants as the programme advances.

EU T+1 Industry Committee website: link