ECSDA WG1

Working Group 1 develops guiding principles on risk, security and audit for ECSDA members. The Group also elaborated a standardised ECSDA disclosure questionnaire.

ECSDA WG2

Working Group 2 drafts ECSDA positions on financial and regulatory aspects of public policy. WG2 monitors and gives opinions on depository-settlement service initiatives in the European Union (e.g., Target2Securities, draft Securities Law Harmonisation Directive, ESBC/CESR Recommendations for CSDs) as well as global initiatives (e.g., draft UNIDROIT Convention, reports of IOSCO, BIS, OECD, IMF, etc.).

ECSDA WG3

Working Group 3 deals with settlement links among depositories. WG3 focuses on cross-border clearing and settlement of securities. WG3 members actively participated in the drafting of the Code of Conduct Access & Interoperability Guideline.

WG3 initiatives

Cross-border Settlement Report

In February 2002, WG3 prepared the "ECSDA Cross-border Settlement Report" which presents models of cross-border DvP and FOP settlement and clearing of transactions. Following the launch of the European Central Bank's TARGET2 project in 2002 and preparation of a general description of functionalities in 2004, ECSDA decided that the WG3 report should also refer to the system's new solutions. It was also decided that the report presented a description of more theoretical models which in fact did not exist on any European market. WG3 was re-established in August 2004 to update the report. The new report, "Cross-border Clearing and Settlement through CSD links", was released in May 2006.

Settlement Data Matching Standards

The European Securities Forum (ESF), which is made up of almost 20 largest international banks active on the European securities markets, approached ECSDA in late 2004 to jointly develop European settlement data matching standards. WG3 published the new standards as "Proposals to harmonise and standardise pre-settlement data matching processes throughout Europe". KDPW is currently (2010) working towards implementation of the ESF-ECSDA settlement data matching standards in consultation with market participants and expects to complete the implementation process in Q1 2011.

Code of Conduct

WG3 has begun preliminary work on harmonisation of mutual access to depository-settlement systems and interoperability rules. The initiative has gained special importance under the provisions of the European Code of Conduct signed in November 2006.

In 2010, WG3 focused on harmonisation of settlement schedules for cash market instruments in the EU.

ECSDA WG5

ECSDA Working Group 5 is responsible for harmonisation of CSD procedures. Since 2007, WG5 has focused on standardisation of processing of corporate actions in order to remove the third barrier identified in the Giovannini Reports.

WG5 has prepared reports on corporate actions which present market standards of mandatory distributions (processing of benefits due to holders of securities from issuers) as well as market claims.

WG5 standards have been used by the Corporate Actions Joint Working Group (CAJWG) to develop the European Market Standards for Corporate Actions Processing published by CAJWG in 2009.

KDPW participates in ECSDA WG5 since 2006.

Since 2008, WG5 has focused on participation in CAJWG as well as the Joint Working Group on General Meetings (JWGGM) which is developing the Market Standards on General Meetings.

The Third Giovannini Barrier Working Group (G3), formed in 2006 by the Council of Custodian Banks and KDPW, is responsible for the implementation of the standards in Poland as the Market Implementation Group.

ECSDA WG6

Working Group 6 (Working Group Communications) was formed in May 2006 by the ECSDA Board of Directors. Its general mandate is to define rules of effective and secure settlement of transactions in the European Union. A priority function of WG6 is to define standards for the communication between CSDs and to harmonise business models for cross-border settlement. Common standards reduce the risk of different interpretation of business concepts and shortens the design time, which helps to implement new services promptly.

The participation of KDPW in WG6 has helped to develop and implement a project of automation of FoP link settlements in the kdpw_stream system.