LONDON, July 10 (Reuters) – A coordinated move by stock markets in the European Union and Britain to catch up with Wall Street by halving the settlement time for transactions could realistically happen in late 2027, an EU regulatory hearing was told on Wednesday.
The European Securities and Markets Authority, the bloc’s markets watchdog, held a hearing on Wednesday where a poll of participants overwhelmingly backed an option to complete T+1 in the fourth quarter of 2027.
“Q4 2027, with all that is already happening, I think is realistic, I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch,” Sebastijan Hrovatin, a senior official at the European Commission, told the hearing, adding that a final decision would be up to the EU states and the European Parliament.
Andrew Douglas, head of Britain’s T+1 industry group now compiling recommendations for UK regulators, said these would include a move date “that is looking increasingly like the back end of 2027, probably September, October.”
Douglas said he was not sure how the EU and UK could formally cooperate given post-Brexit political sensitivities, but it was necessary for both to align with the United States.
The perceived success of the U.S. move has led to a “voluble lobby” in Britain calling for a shift in 2026, but Douglas said that “realistically, I am not sure that’s on the table”.
Vincent Ingham, EFAMA’s director of regulatory policy, said a need to preserve competitiveness in European markets made a compelling case for the EU “to move as quickly as practically and operationally feasible to T+1, co-ordinated with the UK and Switzerland.”
Sign up here.
Reporting by Huw Jones
Editing by Christina Fincher
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.