Euroclear Belgium
Euroclear Belgium is one of three central securities depositories in Belgium, together with Euroclear Bank and NBB-SSS. It is the main CSD for Belgian securities other than government bonds. Both Euroclear Belgium and Euroclear Bank are fully owned entities of the Euroclear Group, which is like them is headquartered in Brussels.
Overview
The Caisse Interprofessionnelle de Dépôts et de Virements de Titres / Interprofessionele Effectendeposito- en Girokas, abbreviated as CIK, was initiated in 1967, and formally created by Belgian Royal Decree of. In 1999, CIK merged with the Brussels Stock Exchange and the Belgium Futures and Options Exchange to form Brussels Exchanges, abbreviated as BXS.In 2000, BXS merged with its Dutch and French counterparts to form Euronext.
In December 2004, Euroclear announce it would acquire CIK from Euronext, following its takeovers of Sicovam in 2001, and Necigef and CRESTCo in 2002. The acquisition was only completed on, following which CIK adopted Euroclear Belgium as its commercial name.
In January 2009, the Euroclear-owned CSDs in Belgium and the Netherlands migrated to a technical platform known as the Euroclear Settlement of Euronext-zone Securities, which had been launched in November 2007 in France. Since then, ESES has been operated by Euroclear as a single platform, even though the relevant contracts and legal arrangements remain differentiated for the three countries.
In 2016, Euroclear Belgium connected to TARGET2-Securities, the Eurosystem's securities settlement service. On that occasion, Euroclear France was appointed investor CSD within ESES. As part of that process, on, all eligible foreign securities from Euroclear Nederland and Euroclear Belgium were transferred to Euroclear France as the CSD of reference. In September 2016, the connection of the three ESES CSDs was successfully completed.