Keith Evans No Comments

TORONTO, April 30, 2016 – The Canadian Capital Markets Association (CCMA) has issued a request for comments from investment industry stakeholders on a list of Canadian security types, identifying whether they are expected to be affected by shortening the settlement cycle from T+3 to T+2.

“Dozens of countries around the world have reduced their securities settlement cycle to a standard of T+2,” said Keith Evans, Executive Director of the CCMA. “Making this change seamlessly, and in tandem with the U.S. in the third quarter of 2017, is essential to maintaining Canada’s capital markets’ reputation as efficient, cost-effective and secure.”

About 40% of trades on Canadian exchanges are in inter-listed securities (that is, a single security listed on both a Canadian and an American exchange) and about a quarter of the trades settling in Canada are from cross-border transactions. Evans added: “Different settlement dates may lead to market distortions, be confusing for investors, and increase both the risk of errors and the need for manual corrections.”

All industry stakeholders are requested to review this document and to respond by Friday, May 27, 2016 to info@ccma-acmc.ca with questions, comments, exceptions and recommendations, so that the list becomes as comprehensive as possible. Once the comment period is over, members of the CCMA’s T+2 Steering Committee (T2SC) will review feedback received, and the list will be republished as ‘final’ to help industry participants prepare for a smooth transition to T+2.

About the CCMA

The Canadian Capital Markets Association (CCMA) is a national, federally incorporated, not-for-profit organization, launched in 1999 to identify, analyze and recommend ways to meet the challenges and opportunities facing Canadian and international capital markets. The CCMA’s mandate is to communicate, educate and help co-ordinate the different segments of the investment industry on projects and initiatives spanning multiple parts of Canada’s capital markets.  Participating under the co-ordinating umbrella of the CCMA are dealers, custodians, asset managers and industry associations; key securities infrastructure, such as exchanges, The Canadian Depository of Securities (CDS) and Fundserv; back-office service providers and vendors; and other stakeholders.

About T+2

The term “T+2” (and likewise T+0, T+1, T+3, and so on) refers to the number of days between when a trade is executed – trade date or T – and the day it settles, that is, when the buyer’s payment for a securities trade is exchanged simultaneously with the securities of the seller. In 1995, Canada and the U.S. together shortened the standard settlement cycle for most debt, equities and funds from T+5 to T+3. T+2 also is short-hand for the current industry-wide project to shorten the maximum standard settlement cycle from T+3 to T+2 in Q3 2017 in conjunction with U.S. capital markets.

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