On 3 December 2025, the European Banking Authority (EBA) issued a consultation paper containing draft regulatory technical standards (RTS) amending Delegated Regulation 2017/390 as regards certain prudential requirements for central securities depositories (CSDs) and designated credit institutions offering banking-type ancillary services.

Background

In March 2022, the European Commission proposed changes to the Central Securities Depositories Regulation (CSDR). Co-legislators reached political agreement in June 2023, with Regulation (EU) 2023/28452 (CSDR Refit) being published in December 2023. The aim of the legislation is to make securities settlement in the EU more efficient and improve the attractiveness of the EU’s capital markets.

As part of CSDR Refit, it was identified that there appears to be limited access by non-banking CSDs to commercial bank money, in particular to be able to offer settlement in foreign currencies to their participants, which limits their business development and competitiveness.  One measure taken to address this is broadening the range of entities that can offer banking-type ancillary services to non-banking CSDs. This was previously limited to designated credit institutions which exclusively provide the banking-type ancillary services listed under Section C of the Annex of the CSDR. Under CSDR Refit, banking CSDs can now provide banking services to other CSDs pursuant to point (b) of Article 54(2a).

Draft RTS

The existing RTS in Delegated Regulation 2017/390 does not consider the additional risks from the new service option. The draft RTS therefore seek to mitigate the additional risks created by banking CSDs or designated credit institutions providing cash settlement of foreign currencies to non-banking CSDs, as well as ensuring there is appropriate reporting of additional risks to Member State competent authorities.

The draft RTS have been drafted assuming that a designated CSD would provide the cash settlement services directly to the designating CSD’s participants, on boarding the designating CSD’s participants as a participant of the banking CSD. The EBA believes that this option is the option that is easiest operationally for CSDs to maintain and imposes the least additional regulatory requirements. The draft RTS also only require notification of provision of cash settlement to a designating CSD by a designated CSD.

Next steps

The deadline for comments on the consultation paper is 3 March 2026.