OREANDA-NEWS. National Settlement Depository (NSD), the central securities depository of the Russian Federation and Depozitarul Central S.A. (Depozitarul Central) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU).

NSD and Depozitarul Central will establish, under the terms of the MOU, a basis of cooperation in securities depository and settlement related matters to help promote cross border investment, explore opportunities of cooperation in both depository and settlement operations, consider opportunities of joint development, and establish an operational linkage.

The parties have agreed to make their best efforts to cooperate on mutual exchange of information on statistics and market updates, on business operating models and the related improvement opportunities, and other matters that may require mutual cooperation.

Adriana Tanasoiu, Chief Executive Officer of Depozitarul Central said: “This Memorandum of Understanding will act as a catalyst to strengthen the friendly and collaborative ties between Russia’s and Romania’s central securities depositories, providing a new relationship for NSD and Depozitarul Central to work across a range of important projects and to enhance the long-term value for our respective client base. Signing the Memorandum is a step forward in facilitating the access of Romanian investors to the Russian financial market."

Depozitarul Central has links with CSDs/ICSDs in 20 countries located on 3 continents and is the first Central and Eastern European Central Securities Depository which will use the European Central Bank’s pan-European settlement platform TARGET2 Securities from the time it becomes operational, in June 2015.

Eddie Astanin, Chairman of the Executive Board, NSD, commented: “Signing the memorandum with Depozitarul Central emphasizes NSD’s commitment to a strategy of integration in the global post-trading space and cooperation with foreign CSDs for the development of Russia’s financial market and support of our customers' transactions in international markets, including the financial markets of Romania.”

NSD has links with CSDs/ICSDs in seven countries including 5 bilateral links with – Euroclear Bank S.A./N.V., Clearstream Banking S.A., KACD (Republic of Kazakhstan), RCSD (Republic of Belarus), CJSCNationalDepositoryCenter (Republic of Azerbaijan), and 2 links opened by NSD with NDU (Ukraine) and "Central Depository of Armenia" OJSC.