On 26 June 2012, on behalf of the Eurosystem, Banco de Portugal signed the TARGET2-Securities Framework Agreement with Interbolsa - Sociedade Gestora de Sistemas de Liquidação e de Sistemas Centralizados de Valores Mobiliários, S.A. The signing of this Agreement marks an important step towards creating a single securities market.

Target2-Securities (T2S) is a key project for the Eurosystem. In future, T2S will be the platform for securities settlement in central bank money in the more important currencies, aiming to optimise interactions between the Central Securities Depositories (CSDs) and reduce the gap between physical and financial settlement.

This project will reduce cross-border settlement barriers and harmonise costs, risks and technical procedures between domestic and international settlements.

Achieving critical mass is one of the major goals of T2S, since the higher the number of settlement transactions, the lower the price to users. On 8 May 2012, nine of the main CSDs in Europe signed the Framework Agreement with the Eurosystem. This Agreement defines rules regarding the involvement and cooperation of CSDs on the Development Phase of T2S and also the services the Eurosystem will provide to those CSDs.

Lisbon, 3 July 2012