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On Friday, the European Central Bank (ECB) confirmed that the third of the planned migration groups for TARGET had successfully completed its migration tests and would go live in one week’s time on the 19th May.
Target2 is the replacement system for the original Target, the Trans-European Automated Real-time Gross settlement Express Transfer system, which itself was launched at the beginning of 1999. Despite being successful, TARGET had a number of shortcomings resulting from its differing component systems. In view of this, and because of developments such as the further enlargement of the euro area, the ECB decided in October 2002 to build the second generation of TARGET. The objective was to better meet user needs by providing a common service level with a single pricing scheme; better cost-efficiency; and in-built capacity for future developments, including the enlargement of the EU and the euro area.
The first migration to Target2 was last November when Austria, Germany, the Baltic States and some smaller Southern European countries went live. The major migration was this February when Belgium, Finland, France, Ireland, Netherlands, Portugal and Spain all successfully migrated. With the completion of tests, the 3rd group (composed of Denmark, Estonia, Greece, Italy, Poland and the ECB itself) are ready and migration will take place as scheduled on the 19th.
As a consequence, a contingency group – scheduled for migration on 15th September 2008 – will now not need to be activated, and, after just over nine years of operation, the original Target system will be switched off next Monday.
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