In its move towards the creation of a single market, the European Union has included securities settlement in its legislative efforts. Compared with the US market, costs of settlement transactions in Europe are exorbitant. "The cost of cross-border transactions today is between €5 to €10, compared with $0.50 in the US," says Paul Bodart, executive vice-president of Bank of New York Mellon. "The aim of Target 2 Securities (T2S) is to bring that cost down to the cost of a domestic transaction." The project's current aim is to reduce settlement cost to between €0.28 and €0.32, and its launch date is 2013.
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