Securities Clearing and Settlement Training Course

Duration 5 days 10 modules · 33 contact hours
Level Intermediate Certificate on completion
Who attends Securities Operations Managers, Custody Operations Professionals and others
Fee from USD 1,100 KSh 95,000 for Kenyan organisations
Where 52 cities + online See dates by city
Next start 16 Nov 2026 Course code SD-BI-104

Before you join: Participants should understand basic securities instruments, including equities, bonds, funds and derivatives, and be familiar with trade-date and settlement-date terminology.

Dates & prices

Two start dates a month in every city, and live online on weekdays or weekends. Fees are per participant; classroom fees include tuition, materials, lunch and refreshments, and the certificate.

Suggest a date or city

Showing the next six months. Later dates, other cities and private deliveries for your team are available on request.

Course overview

Securities transactions create obligations that must be matched, cleared, funded, settled and recorded accurately within tight market deadlines. A trade may appear complete at execution, yet operational, liquidity, legal and counterparty risks remain until securities and cash have transferred with finality. Failures in settlement instructions, collateral, custody records, corporate actions or reconciliations can generate penalties, client losses, regulatory breaches and reputational damage. Professionals responsible for post-trade operations need to understand both the market infrastructure and the control points that protect each stage of the transaction lifecycle.

This course explains the mechanics of securities clearing and settlement from trade capture through final settlement, reconciliation and exception closure. Participants examine the roles of broker-dealers, custodians, central counterparties, central securities depositories, settlement banks and asset managers. They apply delivery-versus-payment models, netting methods, margin processes, settlement finality principles, corporate-action processing and fail-management procedures. The programme also addresses ISO 15022 and ISO 20022 messaging, CSDR settlement discipline, PFMI principles, EMIR obligations and operational resilience controls.

Teaching combines concise technical briefings with realistic cases involving equity, bond and OTC derivative transactions. Participants work through trade allocations, matching breaks, margin calls, funding shortfalls, failed settlements and custody reconciliations. Group discussions compare market practices and operating models across domestic and cross-border transactions. Each participant leaves with a reusable post-trade control toolkit, including process maps, exception-management templates, reconciliation models and a 90-day improvement plan for their own function.

The course is suited to professionals working in securities operations, custody, clearing, treasury, risk, compliance and investment operations who already understand basic financial instruments and require stronger control over post-trade processing.

What you will be able to do

  • Map the securities trade lifecycle from execution through settlement finality
  • Distinguish the operational roles of CCPs, CSDs, custodians and settlement banks
  • Apply delivery-versus-payment, netting and settlement-cycle concepts to transaction flows
  • Evaluate margin, collateral and liquidity requirements arising from cleared transactions
  • Reconcile trade, position, cash and custody records using structured break categories
  • Manage settlement fails through investigation, escalation, buy-in and remediation procedures
  • Interpret ISO messaging, CSDR, PFMI and EMIR requirements affecting post-trade operations
  • Design a controlled post-trade operating model with measurable service-level metrics

Benefits of attending

For you

  • Diagnose settlement breaks using evidence from trade, custody and cash records
  • Communicate effectively with custodians, CCPs, CSDs and settlement banks
  • Reduce manual rework through better matching and standing settlement instruction controls
  • Assess the liquidity and collateral consequences of post-trade decisions
  • Build a credible post-trade improvement plan for a current operational issue

For your organisation

  • Lower settlement-fail exposure through earlier exception identification and escalation
  • Improve custody, treasury and operations coordination around funding and securities availability
  • Strengthen evidence trails for reconciliations, controls testing and audit review
  • Reduce operational losses arising from incorrect instructions, corporate actions and missed deadlines
  • Support compliance with CSDR, EMIR, PFMI and client-asset protection expectations

Course modules

10 modules over 5 days

Participants can map the transaction lifecycle and identify each party's post-trade responsibilities.

  • Trade lifecycle from order execution through final securities and cash settlement
  • Roles of broker-dealers, custodians, CCPs, CSDs and settlement banks
  • Legal transfer concepts: beneficial ownership, title transfer and book-entry securities
  • Primary issuance versus secondary-market trading and post-trade obligations
  • Market models: exchange, OTC, central limit order book and dealer markets
  • Map hand-offs, timestamps and accountabilities across a standard trade lifecycle

Participants can assess trade-capture quality and resolve matching and affirmation exceptions.

  • Trade capture fields: ISIN, quantity, price, currency, place and accounts
  • Compare trade-date, contractual-settlement-date and actual-settlement-date records within control reports
  • Confirmation and affirmation workflows under electronic institutional trade processing
  • ISO 15022 message families for trade confirmation and settlement instruction
  • ISO 20022 business components, messages and data-quality controls
  • Resolve allocation, standing settlement instruction and matching-data exceptions

Participants can explain central clearing, netting, margining and default-management arrangements.

  • Novation and open-offer models used by central counterparties
  • Calculate gross, net and multilateral net settlement obligations
  • CCP default waterfall: margin, default fund and loss allocation
  • Initial-margin methods: SPAN, VaR and stressed risk parameters
  • Variation-margin calls, intraday exposures and collateral substitution controls
  • Assess clearing-member obligations, client accounts and portability arrangements

Participants can manage collateral workflows and identify major margin and liquidity risks.

  • Collateral eligibility schedules, haircuts, concentration limits and wrong-way risk
  • Mark-to-market valuation and margin-call dispute escalation procedures for bilateral exposures
  • Apply ISDA Credit Support Annex mechanics to bilateral collateral
  • Triparty collateral management roles, substitutions and settlement instructions
  • Liquidity impacts of cash margin and eligible securities transformation
  • Document collateral breaks using ageing, ownership and root-cause categories

Participants can analyse settlement models, finality protections and CSD operating processes.

  • Delivery-versus-payment models one, two and three under BIS principles
  • Real-time gross settlement compared with designated-time net settlement
  • Settlement finality, irrevocability and legal protection of transfer orders
  • Central securities depository functions: immobilisation, dematerialisation and account maintenance
  • Sequence securities availability, funding, instruction release and settlement confirmation
  • Analyse settlement cycles, time zones and cross-border custody chains

Participants can investigate failed settlements and coordinate timely remediation actions.

  • Settlement fail taxonomy: securities shortfalls, cash shortfalls and unmatched instructions
  • Buy-in processes, cash penalties and contractual fail remediation
  • Apply CSDR settlement-discipline measures to European securities transactions
  • Investigate fails through instruction status, custody account and funding evidence
  • Prioritise aged exceptions using exposure, client impact and settlement deadlines
  • Escalation matrices linking operations, treasury, compliance and client service teams

Participants can control corporate-action processing for settled and unsettled securities positions.

  • Mandatory, voluntary and mandatory-with-choice corporate action event classifications
  • Election processing, entitlement dates and buyer-protection arrangements for pending trades
  • Calculate record-date entitlements, fractions, withholding tax and proceeds
  • ISO 20022 corporate-action messages and announcement data controls
  • Reconcile issuer agent, custodian and client position records
  • Manage market-claim and transformation processing for unsettled positions

Participants can perform structured reconciliations and strengthen post-trade control evidence.

  • Three-way reconciliation among front-office, custodian and CSD records
  • Break categories: trade economics, position, cash, status and reference data
  • Investigate nostro cash breaks using value dates and payment references
  • Key risk indicators for fails, ageing, overdrafts and unmatched instructions
  • Root-cause analysis using five whys and defect classification
  • Design maker-checker controls, evidence retention and management-information reporting

Participants can assess regulatory and operational-risk requirements affecting post-trade services.

  • PFMI principles governing credit, liquidity, custody and operational risk
  • EMIR clearing obligations, reporting fields and reconciliation responsibilities
  • MiFIR transaction reporting versus post-trade transparency reporting requirements
  • Operational resilience scenarios: cyber disruption, outage, recovery and communication
  • Segregation models, client asset protection and custody-risk oversight
  • Assess outsourcing controls for custodians, vendors and market infrastructures

Participants can define practical improvements to post-trade controls, service levels and accountability.

  • Construct a settlement operating model from trade-date control points
  • Set service-level metrics for affirmation, matching, fails and reconciliations
  • Define escalation thresholds, ownership and decision rights for exceptions
  • Apply RACI to custody, clearing, treasury and operations hand-offs
  • Prioritise improvement actions using risk, cost, control and client criteria
  • Draft a 90-day post-trade improvement plan with measurable milestones

Exercises and examples are adapted to each cohort's sectors and roles.

What you take back to work

  1. Securities trade lifecycle process map
  2. Settlement instruction quality checklist
  3. Margin and collateral control model
  4. Settlement-fail investigation template
  5. Three-way reconciliation break register
  6. 90-day post-trade improvement plan

Who should attend

  • Securities Operations Managers — need stronger control over matching, settlement and exception processes
  • Custody Operations Professionals — require practical methods for safekeeping, settlement and corporate actions
  • Clearing and Collateral Analysts — manage CCP exposures, margin calls and collateral movements
  • Treasury and Liquidity Managers — need visibility of settlement funding and intraday cash requirements
  • Investment Operations Staff — oversee trade support, reconciliations and asset servicing for portfolios
  • Risk, Compliance and Internal Audit Professionals — assess post-trade controls, regulatory duties and operational risk

Skills and tools covered

Trade lifecycle mappingSettlement risk controlCollateral managementCustody reconciliationFail remediationPost-trade governance

Tools and standards

ISO 15022, ISO 20022, PFMI, CSDR

How the course runs

Training methodology

The programme uses short instructor briefings to establish market structure, legal concepts and operational terminology. Cases trace transactions through broker, custodian, CCP, CSD and settlement-bank processes. Group exercises analyse matching exceptions, margin calls, funding shortages, custody breaks and failed settlements. Simulations require participants to prioritise actions against market deadlines and client commitments. Facilitated discussions compare domestic and cross-border practices, while application planning converts course methods into specific improvements for each participant's post-trade responsibilities.

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should understand basic securities instruments, including equities, bonds, funds and derivatives, and be familiar with trade-date and settlement-date terminology. Experience in banking operations, custody, treasury, investment operations, brokerage, asset management or financial control is useful. Participants should be comfortable reading transaction records and discussing cash, securities positions and operational exceptions. Prior knowledge of ISO messaging, CCP margin models, central securities depositories or post-trade regulation is not required. The course does not require programming, advanced quantitative modelling or legal qualifications.

A typical training day

08:30 – 10:30First session
10:30 – 10:45Refreshment break
10:45 – 12:30Second session
12:30 – 13:30Lunch and networking
13:30 – 15:00Third session
15:00 – 15:15Refreshment break
15:15 – 16:30Workshop and daily review

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in East Africa Time, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

  • Instruction by a practitioner facilitator
  • Full course workbook and materials
  • Exercise files, templates and case studies
  • Refreshments and lunch on classroom deliveries
  • Certificate of completion
  • Post-course application plan

Frequently asked questions

Participants should understand basic securities products and common transaction terminology. Experience in banking operations, custody, treasury, investment operations or brokerage is helpful, but prior CCP, CSD or ISO messaging knowledge is not required.

Bring a laptop if possible, together with examples of non-confidential process issues, reports or exception types from your role. Course materials are provided, and no specialist software is needed.

It is designed for professionals involved in securities operations, custody, clearing, collateral, treasury, investment operations, risk and compliance. It is particularly useful for staff moving into post-trade roles or taking responsibility for operational controls.

Trading courses focus on market execution, investment decisions and trade pricing. This course concentrates on what happens after execution: confirmation, clearing, margining, settlement, custody, corporate actions, reconciliations and fail remediation.

Participants can use the process maps, control checklists and break-register methods to review existing post-trade procedures. The final improvement plan helps them identify immediate actions for matching quality, settlement discipline, reconciliations or escalation arrangements.

Each day runs from 08:30 to 16:30 and provides about 6.5 contact hours. Time is divided between technical briefings, transaction cases, group analysis, simulations and structured application planning across the ten modules.

Questions about this course?

Ask about dates, fees, group bookings or running it for your team. Our training team replies by email.

Ask on WhatsApp info@skillsetdevelopment.com

More courses in Banking & Insurance

Banking & Insurance Reinsurance Principles and Practices Training Course 5 days · from USD 1,100 · next 16 Nov Banking & Insurance Reinsurance Structures Training Course 5 days · from USD 1,100 · next 16 Nov Banking & Insurance Retirement Planning Training Course 5 days · from USD 1,100 · next 16 Nov Banking & Insurance Risk-Based Underwriting Training Course 5 days · from USD 1,100 · next 16 Nov Banking & Insurance SME Banking Strategy Training Course 10 days · from USD 2,200 · next 16 Nov Banking & Insurance SME Credit Analysis and Risk Management Training Course 10 days · from USD 2,200 · next 16 Nov Banking & Insurance Securities Operations Management Training Course 5 days · from USD 1,100 · next 16 Nov Banking & Insurance Sharia-Compliant Banking Training Course 10 days · from USD 2,200 · next 16 Nov