On 31 January 2024, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) published a report covering two topics: the cross border provision of services and the handling of passporting requests over three years (2020, 2021 and 2022). The report was published pursuant to Article 74(1) of the Central Securities Depositories Regulation which requires ESMA to submit reports to the European Commission on these topics. A previous report covering 2018 to 2020 was submitted to the Commission in November 2021 (2020 Report).
Key findings
- The report notes an overall stability in the landscape of EEA central securities depositories (CSDs), with a clear dichotomy between international CSDs and other EEA CSDs.
- The report also revealed a variation in approaches to cross border integration.
- Further regulatory factors and market factors were identified, including connection to TARGET2-Securities (T2S), as main drivers of development of cross border services.
Another key finding was that, compared to 2017-2020, less applications have been submitted in the period between 2020 and 2022. Applicants and Member State competent authorities have noticed limited progress in tackling the challenges on the handling of applications identified in the 2020 Report, and place high expectations from the changes introduced by the CSDR Refit.
The report also considers further topics for consideration. These include:
- The rationale behind each CSD choice on specific forms of cross border integration.
- The significance of relayed links.
- The role of global custodians in the provision of CSD services.
- The benefits of connection to T2S.