The trading frenzy in GameStop shares in late January is spurring a move to one-day trade settlement.
The Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. (DTCC) on Wednesday released a two-year industry road map for shortening the settlement cycle for U.S. equities to one business day after the trade is executed, or T+1.
The Reddit GameStop squeeze has cast a spotlight on what's being called the "antiquated" T+2 standard settlement cycle for most broker-dealer securities transactions.
"It's time for T+2 to go," Vlad Tenev, CEO and co-founder of Robinhood Markets, said in a tweet Feb. 2, just days after Robinhood halted buying in GameStop and other stocks.
Robinhood's decision on Jan. 28 to restrict buying in GameStop and other so-called meme stocks heavily traded by retail investors was driven by regulatory requirements, and the hedge funds Melvin Capital and Citadel Securities played no role in that decision, Tenev told lawmakers on Feb. 18.
"Robinhood Securities put the restrictions in place in an effort to meet increased regulatory deposit requirements [from clearinghouses], not to help hedge funds," Tenev told members of the House Financial Services Committee.
In its Wednesday paper, "Advancing Together: Leading the Industry to Accelerated Settlement," DTCC highlights the immediate benefits of moving to a T+1 settlement cycle, including cost savings, reduced market risk and lower margin requirements, as well as the firm's plans for galvanizing the necessary support for the project across a wide range of market participants.
Former SEC Chairman Clayton Weighs In
Former SEC Chairman Jay Clayton agreed Tuesday at DealBook's DC Policy event that "time has come for that [trade settlement] period to be shortened. There are costs to that period being two days. … There's the time value of money, the amount you need to finance those two days of an open position and the uncertainty."
Clayton added: "There's no reason with the technology that we have today that that can't be shortened significantly, whether it goes to what people refer to as T+0 … but it can be shortened significantly."
The Move to T+1
DTCC — which lacks the regulatory or legal authority to unilaterally change the settlement cycle — stated in its paper that in order to move to T+1, "industry participants must align and agree to shorten the settlement cycle by implementing the necessary operational and business changes, and regulators must be engaged."
"DTCC continues to take a leadership position to shorten the settlement cycle to T+1, similar to the role it played in 2017 to move to T+2," the firm said.
