Lisbon - 3 December 2012-Interbolsa, a subsidiary of NYSE Euronext and the Central Securities Depository (CSD) for the Portuguese market, announced today that it has become the CSD for Portuguese Treasury Bills. Interbolsa will be responsible for ensuring not only the registration and control of the Treasury Bills but also the settlement of transactions.
IGCP, the issuer of Portuguese public debt, with the collaboration of Banco de Portugal (Central Bank of Portugal) promoted the transfer of all short-term debt issues to Interbolsa that were registered at SITEME - Sistema de Transferências Electrónicas de Mercado, a central securities depository managed by Banco de Portugal (Central Bank of Portugal). This transfer follows from the closing down on 30 November 2012 of the central securities depository SITEME, which was approved in the Council of Ministers on 22 November 2012.
Presently, Interbolsa also acts as the depository for Portuguese Treasury Bonds providing the same services of registration, control and settlement.
“The closing down of the central securities depository SITEME was announced by Banco de Portugal, in a communication dated 17 October 2012. The process of transfer of the registration of the Treasury Bills from SITEME to Interbolsa took place with success during the weekend of 1 and 2 December”, said a spokesperson of Banco de Portugal.
“We gladly welcome the decision to integrate the issues of Treasury Bills in Interbolsa. We believe that this is yet another important step for our market that will enable retail investors to trade in public debt instruments in the future”, said Luís Laginha de Sousa, CEO of NYSE Euronext Lisbon and Interbolsa.
“Combining this operation with the developments taking place internationally, and particularly in Europe, with regards to settlement systems and centralization of securities where Interbolsa is active and highly recognized, may also provide new opportunities in the development of the capital markets of Portuguese-speaking countries”, he added.
Interbolsa has been recently recognized within the Corporate Action Sub-Group of TARGET2-Securities (T2S), a group of experts in corporate actions created by the European Central Bank, for the best practices in post-trading and being the leader among its pairs in what regards the harmonization and compliance of the portuguese market with the international recommendations related with processing of corporate actions. Previously Interbolsa had been ranked among the five top CSDs in the harmonization of matching procedures.
TARGET2-Securities (T2S) is the future IT platform managed by the Eurosystem for the settlement of securities in central bank money from 2015 onwards.