The CCMA Board, at its April 2021 meeting, formally approved a new CCMA priority: co-ordinating the Canadian capital markets’ review of shortening the settlement cycle from the current North-American standard of T+2 to T+1 – the day after a trade is made. Canadian financial services members have been involved in discussions of a reduced settlement cycle with U.S. counterparts since last year, and the CCMA became involved directly this past February. U.S. industry leads have now formally announced efforts to accelerate the securities settlement cycle from T+2 to T+1, with a date for the change to be identified later this year.
The CCMA led national industry-wide efforts to reduce the settlement cycle from T+5 to T+3 in 1995, and from T+3 to T+2 in 2017, on the same day as the U.S. given Canada’s and the U.S.’s highly inter-related capital markets. After a successful transition, CCMA members completed a T+2 Project – Post-Mortem Report (2018), which provides useful guidance for CCMA Advisory Council members working on the T+1 project. The CCMA will post additional information as it becomes available under Resources.