Most financial industry firms in the U.K. are aware of efforts to match the recent North American transition to quicker securities clearing — moving to standard T+1 trade settlement — but many haven’t yet funded the work needed to make the move, according to a new report.
The latest progress report from the Accelerated Settlement Taskforce finds that while the industry has made advancements toward the adoption of T+1 settlement by October 2027, these efforts aren’t being backed with funding at many firms.
“The major concern for us to be aware of is that whilst the general direction of travel supports increasing levels of engagement, at the end of [the third quarter of 2025], 61% of participants had not yet secured the necessary budget for implementing their compliance projects in 2026,” the report said.
The taskforce called on firms to address this issue so that they can avoid “the situation experienced by some firms in the U.S.,” during the shift to T+1 by the North American industry, where firms needed to bring in external contractors to meet their deadlines.
“This is expensive and can only ever be a short-term solution,” the report said.
Additionally, the taskforce said that an industry survey found that a majority of firms currently won’t be able to meet an interim deadline — for trade allocation and confirmation processing — by the end of 2026.
“Again, we must now focus on this to avoid missing this key target deadline,” the report said.
“We expect market participants to already have project plans in place to facilitate the move to T+1 settlement by October 2027,” Jamie Bell, head of capital markets at the U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), said. “By the end of 2026, we expect participants to have completed the necessary changes to systems and processes and be ready to test those changes.”
He added: “The transition is a joint effort — it is imperative that you engage early and regularly with all parties involved in the settlement cycle.”