T+1 And The Global Race To Build The Next Generation Of Market Infrastructure
Richard Baker is the CEO of Tokenovate, a UK fintech delivering post-trade automation and settlement solutions for derivatives and SFTs.
gettyIn October 2027, U.K. and EU securities markets will join the U.S. and at least seven other markets worldwide already operating on the T+1 (transaction date plus one business day) settlement cycle. Allocations, affirmations, funding, reconciliation and settlement will all need to happen within a single business day, across a wide network of institutions and systems.
Censuswide’s 2026 research, commissioned by Tokenovate, revealed that 83% of U.K. post-trade professionals expect their firms to meet the deadline. Operational readiness tells a more nuanced story, though, with only 32% describing themselves as fully prepared today.
T+1 therefore gives firms a golden opportunity to make decisions that will shape how efficiently they operate well beyond October 2027. The technology, data standards and operating models firms put in place now will determine how well they adapt as markets move toward tokenized assets, continuous trading and more programmable settlement.
The U.S. transition provides a useful indication of what can be achieved, while also showing the limits of relying on operational fixes. Following the move to T+1, almost 95% of transactions were meeting same-day affirmation criteria, compared with 73% at the start of 2024. The NSCC Clearing Fund also fell by an average of $3 billion, or 23%, with settlement failure rates remaining broadly in line with those seen before the change.
Those results came after more than three years of coordinated preparation across firms and market infrastructures. Indeed, the U.K.’s Investment Association noted in a report earlier this year that some U.S. firms initially responded to T+1 by adding headcount and that manual work-arounds introduced to meet the deadline have proved difficult to unwind. Without greater automation, those operational costs could persist as markets move toward faster, more continuous settlement.
Ultimately, T+1 leaves the obligations created by a trade unchanged but gives firms far less time to complete allocations, move collateral into place and resolve exceptions. It favors infrastructure that can process information consistently without repeated reconciliation or manual intervention.
That pressure will only grow as the market itself becomes more diverse. Traditional and digital assets increasingly coexist across different settlement systems and forms of money. However, connecting systems only gets the market so far, as they also need a consistent understanding of the trade moving between them.
ESMA’s new T+1 framework reinforces the need for more consistent, standardized communication between firms. As settlement speeds up, information needs to move just as smoothly between institutions and systems.
Common standards such as the FINOS Common Domain Model provide a shared representation of financial products, transactions and key events throughout their life cycle, reducing the need to reinterpret a trade as it moves between those systems.
Legal meaning needs to travel with the data too. Recording an asset movement doesn’t determine whether ownership has passed, an obligation has been discharged or settlement is final, so those outcomes must remain tied to the appropriate legal agreements and official market records.
In September 2026, the Eurosystem launched Pontes, allowing wholesale transactions in tokenized assets to settle in central bank money. Meanwhile, in the U.S., DTCC has been advancing tokenized securities and settlement capabilities across Treasurys, equities and delivery-versus-payment. Project Agorá adds a cross-border dimension by exploring how different forms of central and commercial bank money could work together to support more coordinated cross-border settlement.
All these developments point toward digital assets becoming more closely connected with the infrastructure already at the heart of regulated markets. As this happens, the ability to coordinate assets, money and the obligations around them becomes fundamental to market efficiency. For the U.K., the question is how quickly it can turn the direction of travel into working market infrastructure.
The Wholesale Digital Markets Champion’s first report placed end-to-end repo among its priorities, providing a practical test of whether U.K. digital market infrastructure can support the full transaction life cycle. The pace of change could be rapid, with our research results suggesting that the industry anticipates widespread T+0 or atomic settlement within 3.7 years. The path will vary across asset classes, but faster settlement will demand much closer coordination between cash, assets and contractual obligations.
T+1 gives firms a reason to build those capabilities now. Common standards, connected automation and interoperable infrastructure can support the next year’s transition while creating a stronger foundation for more programmable and atomic markets. Turning those strengths into infrastructure that works across asset classes, institutions and settlement models could allow the U.K. to set the standard for how markets globally navigate the next phase of financial modernization.
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