HomeNewsSIA in partnership with Colt wins the tender for the access network to TARGET2-Securities

SIA in partnership with Colt wins the tender for the access network to TARGET2-Securities

SIA, in partnership with Colt, has won the tender for the license for the design, creation and management of the new network infrastructure to connect central depositories (CSDs), Eurosystem central banks and the leading European bank groups to TARGET2-Securities (T2S). The license was awarded by European Central Bank.

The TARGET2-Securities project was conceived in 2008 by the European Central Bank and will be managed by four central banks (Banca d’Italia, Deutsche Bundesbank, Banque de France and Banco de Espana). It will create a single European platform for the settlement of domestic and cross-border securities transactions and integrate post-trading infrastructures, which are still fragmented ten years after the introduction of the single currency. TARGET2-Securities is one of the initiatives for the creation of the single European market, which follows the introduction of the Euro, TARGET2, SEPA (Single Euro Payments Area)and PSD (Payment Services Directive).

The delivery of the new T2S platform is planned for mid-2015. According to European Central Bank figures, TARGET2-Securities will process a daily average of over 1 million securities transactions with positive effects on the costs of cross-border settlements, where it is forecast there will be a significant reduction.

The successful partnership between SIA and Colt, created for this project, reflects on the experience of both companies in providing highly secure, networked solutions to the financial services sector across the European markets.

SIA is one of the leading service providers in Europe in the banking and financial sectors and processes a daily average of over 3 million transactions through a proprietary network infrastructure (SIAnet) with two operational hubs, one in Milan and one in London.

Colt, Europe’s leading information delivery platform, is an established provider of managed services to the financial sector. It provides connectivity to a number of stock exchanges across Europe and some of the fastest connections between key trading capitals such as London and Frankfurt.

To allow access to T2S, the two companies will develop secure, high speed connectivity and messaging services in line with the requirements and specifications defined by the ECB. SIA and Colt’s network architecture will also permit CSDs (such as Montetitoli, Euroclear and Clearstream), central banks and the major banks operating at European level to access the new securities transactions settlement platform, while guaranteeing total security and privacy in the transmission of data, high reliability, performance and business continuity standards.

As stated in the tender, the license awarded to SIA and Colt will be valid from February 2012.

This important success provides confirmation of our central role in Europe in the design and creation of infrastructures for financial and central institutions and recognition of a ‘made in Italy’ technology that is on equal terms with that of foreign players – declares Massimo Arrighetti, CEO of SIA – This result demonstrates our ability to compete on the market with internationally recognised companies. At the same time, it contributes to the creation of a network of excellence aimed at ongoing innovation and system improvement which is the objective of our partnership strategy.

Simon Walsh, Executive Vice President, Colt comments: “T2S is a major project for the European securities industry. We are delighted – in conjunction with SIA – to have been awarded this license. Colt is a pan-European services provider and has been providing secure connectivity to the Financial Services community for nearly 20 years. Our success in winning this project in joint partnership with SIA recognises our depth of experience in the Financial Services sector and our ability to securely deliver information across Europe.

SIA is European leader in the design, creation and management of technology infrastructures and services for Financial and Central Institutions, Corporates and Public Administration bodies in the areas of payments, e-money, network services and capital markets.

SIA Group is currently present in around 40 countries and also operates through its subsidiaries in Belgium, Hungary and South Africa.

With 7.5 billion transactions annually relating to cards, collections and payments, 62.4 million cards managed and 9.2 billion transactions on financial markets, SIA carries 11.1 thousand billion bytes of data on the network.

The Group is made up of seven companies: the parent SIA, the Italian companies Pi4Pay (collection and payment services), RA Computer (solutions and applications for banks, businesses and P.A.), and TSP (systems and services for companies and P.A.), SiNSYS (card processing) in Belgium, Perago (infrastructures for central banks) in South Africa and SIA Central Europe in Hungary.

For more information, go to: www.sia.eu

About Colt

Colt is the information delivery platform for Europe, enabling its customers to deliver, share, and process and store their vital business information. An established leader in delivering integrated computing and network services to major organisations, midsized businesses and wholesale customers, Colt operates a 21-country, 35,000km network that includes metropolitan area networks in 39 major European cities with direct fibre connections into 18,000 buildings and 19 Colt data centres.

In 2010, the Colt Data Centre Services business was launched to deliver innovative high quality modular data centres which are rapid to deploy and power efficient.

Colt is listed on the London Stock Exchange (COLT). Information about Colt and its services can be found at www.colt.net.

Contacts:

SIA

Filippo Fantasia
Head of Media Coordination
Tel. +39 02.6084.2833
Mob. +39 335.1202713
[email protected]

Colt

François d’Essertaux
DDI: +44 (0) 20 7863 2953
Mobile: +44 (0) 7538 095 485
Email: [email protected]

Weber Shandwick

Tim Focas
DDI: +44 (0) 207 067 0532
Email: [email protected]

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