The UK Accelerated Settlement Taskforce (AST), the EU T+1 Industry Committee (IC), and the Swiss Securities Post Trade Council T+1 Task Force (swissSPTC) have jointly published a unified Testing and Readiness Plan targeting the European financial industry’s transition to T+1 settlement by 11 October 2027.
According to Securities Finance Times, the plan has been developed in direct response to industry demand. A significant proportion of market participants expressed the need for a unified testing programme rather than separate, jurisdiction-specific plans, prompting the three taskforces to collaborate on a single, coordinated framework.
The AST, IC and swissSPTC collectively represent the regulatory and industry infrastructure overseeing securities settlement across three of Europe’s most interconnected financial markets. Their combined remit spans trade execution, post-trade processing, and settlement chain oversight, making them uniquely positioned to coordinate a pan-European readiness effort of this scale.
The Testing and Readiness Plan provides a practical framework for all market participants and financial market infrastructures (FMIs) to assess and validate their readiness ahead of the T+1 go-live date. It is described as the first of its kind to simultaneously span the EU, UK and Swiss financial markets. The plan sets out guiding principles for industry-wide testing — emphasising the importance of starting immediately using existing business-as-usual test environments — as well as a testing timeline and logistics framework, including recommended windows for testing providers to open environments. It also includes a de-risking framework drawing on lessons learned from the US T+1 transition, with key metrics for firms to assess their own performance against.
Beyond general readiness principles, the plan details trade flow scenarios covering on-exchange and OTC trades, securities lending, repo, FX and corporate events. It also provides dedicated guidance for FMIs on communicating test environment access to participants. The plan is underpinned by three core principles: that automation is a key success factor; that participant readiness depends on the readiness of the entire settlement chain; and that providers should begin testing now.
The publication follows the establishment of a joint Testing and Readiness Workstream by the AST and EU T+1 IC in December 2025. Given the deep interconnection between EU, UK and Swiss markets and the significant cross-border participation across all three, the three taskforces determined that a single aligned programme would deliver substantially greater benefit than separate national plans.
UK T+1 Accelerated Settlement Taskforce chair Andrew Douglas said, “As requested by industry participants, we have collaborated with the EU on the launch and implementation of this testing framework. It will help firms to design and execute their own test plan for individual solution components as well as full end-to-end testing. It also clearly shows that testing of the individual components can start now, allowing plenty of time to guarantee a smooth transition to T+1 by October 2027.”
EU T+1 Industry Committee chair Giovanni Sabatini said, “Moving to T+1 is not merely a technical upgrade — it is a pillar of the Savings and Investment Union and a unique opportunity to remove friction from European capital markets. The fact that EU, UK, and Swiss authorities are delivering this together is a demonstration of what practical, functional cooperation can achieve. We are building a bridge, and this testing plan is a critical part of it.”
Swiss Securities Post Trade Council T+1 Task Force chair Florentin Soliva said, “Switzerland’s inclusion in this joint programme reflects our markets’ deep integration with the wider European post-trade ecosystem. A coordinated approach is the only approach that makes sense.”
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