The European Association of Cooperative Banks (EACB) has co-signed with the EBF, ESBG and EAPB and sent to the European Central Bank (ECB) a letter requesting the ECB to consider the possibility of delaying the ongoing TARGET2 and TARGET2 Securities consolidation project by one year.
All our members have been very committed to the consolidation project and its full implementation that we expect to bring benefits to all parties involved. In the past years our members have been working extensively to ensure a successful migration within the set dates. However, the combination of two recent events has impacted banks’ ability to achieve completion of their consolidation projects by the current deadline of November 2021: the COVID-19 crisis and the decision by SWIFT to delay migration of cross-border payments to ISO20022 to November 2022. What is more, since the consolidation is to be by means of a “big bang”, failure is not an option which means that the project is dependent on the weakest link in the chain being ready notwithstanding any unexpected and unforeseen events for which adequate contingency is considered to be essential.