Belgium	Canada
	A. Structure
A.1. Name of system	National Bank of Belgium Clearing System (NBB)	Securities Settlement Service of the Canadian Depository for Depository for Securities (CDS)
A.2. Date operations commenced	January 1991	1981 for equities; 1989 for government debt securities
A.3. Instruments	TBs and long-term government bonds (OLOs), CP; in Belgian francs and ECUs	Debt securities, including government issues and "strips"; equities
A.4. Ownership	NBB	Six major banks; f1ve trust companies; Investment Dealers' Association, Toronto and Montreal Exchanges - in three equal groups
A.5. Operator	NBB	CDS
A.6. Securities depository	NBB	CDS
A.7. Settlement bank for funds	NBB (central bank)	Royal Bank of Canada
A.8. Participants	Financial institutions and brokers established in Belgium and Luxembourg; Cedel, Euroclear	Regulated financial institutions(incl. dealers, banks, trust companies, insurance companies, clearing and depository companies investment institutions (credit unions, unit trusts, pension funds, etc.)
A.9. Separation of accounts	Customer securities are separately identified (en bloc) in the system's records	Customer securities segregated en bloc by dealers only
A.10. Overseer or regulator	Theoretically by government representative; in fact by audit of central bank	No federal regulatory agency; but Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions has been developing Memorandum of Understanding with provincial securities commissions and CDS to establish cooperative regulatory arrangements
	B. Trade confirmation and trade netting
B.1. Confirmation of terms	Dual confirmation; operated by NBB Clearing	Single reporting from seller(or dealer if one, side is non-dealer), with confirmation from other side(which may well be confirmation by absence of correction)
B.2. Trade netting	Multilateral netting of trades	Gross transfers of securities payments netted multilaterally
	C. Securities transfers
C.1. Initiation	Transfers across accounts initiated by NBB Clearing	Sender of security initiates transfer
C.2. Basis and timing	Once a day, net, end of afternoon	Two batch cycles, one overnight one at noon (to sweep up the night's fails, etc.). Gross book-entry transfer
C.3. Finality	Unconditional transfers	Conditional on receipt of payment(by 11 a.m. on the morning following overnight cycle, or 2. 30 afternoon cycle)
C.4. Securities overdrafts	No	No
C.5. Borrowing / lending	Bilateral lending possible within system. Automatic bond lending provided by pool of lenders; return of bonds guaranteed by NBB Clearing.	System provides facility for pledging, but lending arrangements made outside system.
C.6. Limits on borrowing	10% of amount of issue for all borrowers, 5% per participant; collateral must amount to market value of borrowed 110% of securities	(Not within system)
	D. Funds transfers
D.1. Initiation	NBB Clearing initiates	Initiated by the Payment Exchange process of the settlement cycles
D.2. Type of funds	Cash accounts at central bank	Payments made to CDS by certified cheque drawn on a payment agency (transferring the payment obligation to that agency, a direct clearer with settlement account at Bank of Canada: limits may apply) by 11 a.m.(or 2.30 p.m. for noon cycle): CDS makes payment by uncertified cheque at3.45 p.m (4.15 p.m.)
D.3. Settlement	Net, end of afternoon	Cheques are cleared for settlement at Bank of Canada next day, and backdated to day the transfer was initiated (S)
D.4. Separation	Clearing combined with that of other funds transfers	Cleared and settled with all other payment items
D.5. Unwinding	Transfers may be reversed in case of default of cash, by NBB Clearing	Funds themselves can only be unwound by Canadian Payments Association in event of agency's default
D.6. Credit facilities	Central bank offers credit facilities	No credit provided by system
D.7. Credit limits	Limits vary from bank to bank collateral is taken,
	E. Linkages between final transfers of securities and funds
E.1. Synchronisation	Final transfer occur simultaneously at end of afternoon	Not simultaneous
E.2. Order of transfers		Securities first; final funds transfer next day, backdated to day of transfer. Securities received may be redelivered; but any received cannot be withdrawn from system until following day (on payment finality)
E.3. Consequences of payment failure	If a participant fails, all its securities and cash transfers are cancelled	CDS seeks to complete all bargains including defaulter's. It may (in extremis) cancel some of the defaulter's bargains to remain within its constraints: a guaranteed credit line collateralised by the assets in the participant fund, and any further monies which could be raised using this collateral. These monies would be recovered by sale of defaulter's purchased stock and assets in the participant fund (or in other participant funds) and a claim on other participants in the participant fund(s) affected, plus a loss-sharing arrangement. Through its charge over purchased assets, CDS may allow a defaulting participant until close on S + 1 to satisfy a payment obligation.