AI Versus Common Sense: Why Machines Will Never Match Human Intelligence By now, you’ve probably heard the buzz around artificial intelligence. How could you not? AI is everywhere these days. From Chat-GPT to every other program on the market, AI is inescapable. We’ve seen the AI-generated Spongebob cover songs. We’ve seen the AI Pope-sporting-cool-winter-jacket image. […]

Independent Accreditation for EU AI Act Compliance Offered   LONDON,  15 October 2025 – ISITC Europe CIC has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with AI compliance platform genbounty.com to provide independent AI audits for firms. This service will help create AI policies ensuring compliance and governance. Gary Wright, Director of Industry Affairs and one […]

  From T+1 to T+0 – Digital Settlement, Atomic Processing, and the Future of Post Trade Executive Summary The second ISITC Europe roundtable hosted by Tori Global on the Future of Post Trade explored the transition from  T+1 to T+0 settlement, highlighting the critical role of digital infrastructure, atomic settlement, and cross-sector collaboration. As the […]

Compliance, Controls and Data: Are We Ready for T+1? I had the privilege of attending an excellent ISTIC Europe Market Roundtable hosted by TORI Global, bringing together compliance, operations, and strategy leaders from across the financial services industry. With the T+1 settlement deadline rapidly approaching, the session was both timely and thought-provoking. Market Context and […]

Final Implementation Plan Published by the UK Accelerated Settlement Task Force. The final implementation plan published by the UK Accelerated Settlement Taskforce is now available. This is the culmination of two years of detailed analysis, debate and design by 450+ subject matter expert volunteers from 116 Market Participant firms across the industry, working in five […]

Today the UK Accelerated Settlement Taskforce has published the draft recommendations and consultation report. The report is 75 pages long and contains 43 principal recommendations plus 14 additional recommendations. These recommendations have been crafted in 8 months of hard work by 450+ of our peers from more than 110 different firms operating in the UK […]

ISITC Europe is backing an innovative research project focused on cybersecurity. This initiative is led by key academics including Dr Desmond Laffey from Kent Business School, Dr Tony Gandy from ISITC Europe, and myself, Professor Daniel Broby from Ulster Business School. By adapting well-established credit rating methodologies used in finance, we intend to create a […]

No Change To CLS Settlement Timeline For T+1 T+1 arrives in North America on May 27th and 28th this year. The UK Technical taskforce is working towards implementation of  T+1 in the UK by the end of 2027. The EU markets have yet to set a date, but it is anticipated they will also move […]

T+0: realistic target or deluded fantasy? Part 2: the need for speed.  By Tony Freeman Faster is better – right? If you’re Lewis Hamilton: obviously yes. But suppose you’re a manufacturer based in Shenzhen making iPhone cases, your costs are all in Renminbi and Hong Kong Dollars, but your revenues are mostly in US Dollars, […]

  Today, saw the publication of the long-awaited UK Accelerated Settlement Taskforce report written by Charlie Geffen. ISITC Europe supports the report and its conclusions, which recommends that the UK implement T+1 settlement by 2027 We also support the wish to collaborate with the EU to where possible, to coordinate the T+1 implementation date and […]

Blockchain & DLT – just like the early railways or good for T+1? You decide By Tony Freeman In the early 1800’s railway pioneers across Great Britain and Ireland were busy developing this amazing new form of transport. Imagine the transformational impact of moving from horse speed to a steam-driven locomotive capable of 25kmh. Coal […]

The race to T+1: Your guide to getting ready In this recording ‘The race to T+1: Your guide to getting ready’ from a LinkedIn broadcast, moderated by Simon Daniel from Swift, T+1 implications and assessment are discussed with Alex Chow from the Investment Association and Gary Wright, Director Industry Affairs of ISITC Europe. The conversation […]

Closing the gap between Issuers and Investors demands greater interaction Capital markets are continuing their journey to real-time operations. The barriers brought by legacy systems and time zone differences are crumbling and will soon be knocked down entirely. Part of the motivation to operate in real-time is the certainty of trade date plus one day […]

T+1: What I’d like to hear at SIBOS – part 2 Written by Tony Freemen   Let’s talk about FX – and its T+2 settlement cycle. The initial discussions about the benefits of a move to T+1 in the US focused, almost exclusively, on the risk and cost benefits to the clearing process. The discussion […]

T+1: What I’d like to hear at SIBOS – part 1 Written by Tony Freemen Sadly, I can’t make it to SIBOS this year. I was really looking forward to speaking at the SWIFT Academy session on T+1 settlement but medical issues mean that I’m grounded. I know that my colleagues Tony Gandy and Gary […]

A Roadmap Towards an Ethical Wealth Market   By Anmol Chaudhari Introduction As the world grows more conscious of its impact on the environment and society, the realm of investing is undergoing a profound transformation. Sustainable investing, often referred to as ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) investing, has emerged as a powerful vehicle for not only […]

Thinking about T+1 – Is a crisis always obvious? How do you define a crisis? It may sound like a dumb question – surely, it’s obvious! If your house is on fire – certainly. But is it always obvious? The reason I raise this issue is the efficiency of post-trade operations in buyside firms. For […]

  Following the debut of the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA), which proposes that the Regulator should regulate infrastructure and is due to be ratified by the EU this year. The ISITC Europe debate on the subject of ‘Should the Regulator interfere in infrastructure, took place last week hosted by Metro Bank. The audience was […]

  As you may have seen, in the US the SEC has recently voted to propose rule changes including moving to a T+1 settlement cycle for most broker-dealer transactions in securities. The SEC says: “The proposed changes are designed to reduce the credit, market, and liquidity risks in securities transactions faced by market participants and […]

The diversification of institutional investments into a broader range of asset types over the last couple of decades has been significant and transformative. Buy-side firms have expanded their investment focuses from the more traditional end of the investment spectrum to all kinds of alternatives, including real assets such as commodities, real estate and even crypto […]

Accelerated digital transformation is driving increasingly complex and distributed digital infrastructures; across on-premises, private cloud and public cloud platforms. The reality is that most organisations find themselves in this ‘hybrid reality’ – and will continue to do so for some time to come. Organisations are investing significant amounts of money into building modern dynamic hybrid […]

Downtime is expensive. The average cost of unplanned application downtime at Tier One financial institutions exceeds $2.5bn every year, according to the IDC. The Operational Resilience of your business depends now more than ever on the availability of your IT systems. Critical systems and the applications which support them need to be available at all times, […]

At a recent webcast on the topic of reference data, with a panel of leading data experts including representatives from HSBC and Euroclear, which I had the privilege of moderating. The many problems of data in the Capital Markets, including reference data were put on the table and a range of potential solutions was discussed. […]

We need to talk post-trade : The problem with the status quo Even before the spring 2020 volatility, the need to invest in post-trade infrastructure across the sell-side was becoming widely accepted. Investment in the back-office has lagged that of the front-office for decades. In some institutions, front-office systems capable of executing thousands of trades a […]

Our recent joint ISITC Europe/CISI webcast tackled the age-old, thorny problem of data quality in the financial markets. Reference data, the vitally important data that relates to efficient settlement of financial transactions was highlighted during the panel discussion. The panel debated legacy data supply chains and the difficulty of retaining data quality, as the data […]

“There’s an evolution taking place” in blockchain and with other industry technologies, according to a panellist at this years annual ISITC Europe meeting in London. Bob Santangelo, president of international sales at Broadridge Financial Solutions, said that to adapt to this evolution, “every financial institution is looking at a way to create lower cost”, explaining […]