On 16 December 2020, KELER Központi Értéktár Zrt. (KELER Central Securities Depository Ltd.) (KELER), the central depository of Hungary, was granted an authorisation under the Central Securities Depositories Regulation (CSDR) and can now offer its clients its services supporting an efficient and secure securities market as a central securities depository operating under unified European regulations.
The main objectives of the CSDR Regulation on central securities depositories are to increase the security and efficiency of securities settlement infrastructures in the European Union and to create a level playing field between the central securities depositories. In addition to central securities depositories, the Regulation will soon introduce new provisions governing a very strict settlement discipline for a broad range of capital market operators.
The new regulation seeks to establish a uniform regulatory framework for the authorisation, client access and risk management of central securities depositories, introducing standard capital requirements and prudential rules in order to maintain their solvency and also rules on operation and governance, and the provision of services. In this context, the CSDR requires all EU central securities depositories to initiate a new authorisation procedure. KELER, which operates as a specialised credit institution according to the Hungarian legislation, was granted a CSDR authorisation by the Central Bank of Hungary (MNB) for its ancillary banking services as a central securities depository and credit institution.
“KELER has managed to achieve an extremely important milestone by obtaining the CSDR authorisation. As the most important background institution for the issuance of securities and the settlement of securities transactions, we have taken a significant step towards a more flexible, safer and more transparent operation not only of the Hungarian but also of the European capital market. This success is a shared success for all of us, which has required additional efforts from all our colleagues in recent years. I wish to emphasize the exemplary cooperation between KELER and MNB, which resulted in our European-level authorisation. It is a special merit that, despite the difficulties caused by the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, the organisation worked hard to meet the new legal and operational requirements in all aspects and to place the company's operation on a new foundation”, said the chief executive officer of KELER Zrt. Zsolt Demkó-Szekeres.