On the 7th of October 2023, Euronext Securities Porto carried out a global external test of business continuity with the activation of its disaster recovery center, allowing financial intermediaries to verify Euronext Securities Porto’s recovery capacity, acting normally from their own offices. This test is part of the plan for the verification of the adequacy and of the operation of the recovery procedures and necessary resources as described in the Business Continuity Plan of Euronext Securities Porto.

This test is part of the plan for the verification of the adequacy and of the operation of the recovery procedures and necessary resources as described in the Business Continuity Plan of Euronext Securities Porto.

Euronext Securities Porto took advantage of the availability of the T2S platform during a non-working day to test with external participation the activation of the Business Continuity Plan. This availability was made possible by ECB extending the real time settlement window after the NTS settlement on the night from Friday to Saturday until Saturday afternoon

The test was open to the voluntary participation of all financial intermediaries affiliated to Euronext Securities Porto, and ten institutions participated in this test of the disaster recovery center by accessing from their own offices, namely Banco Comercial Português, S.A, Banco Finantia, S.A., BNP Paribas, S.A., Citibank International, PLC, Caixa Geral de Depósitos, S.A., Novo Banco, S.A., Best – Banco Electrónico de Serviço Total, S.A., Novo Banco dos Açores, S.A., ABanca Corporation Bancaria, S.A. – Sucursal em Portugal and Banco de Portugal (DMR).

The test began on Saturday morning with a simulated incident, which left its main data center unavailable, with the consequent activation of the disaster recovery center and the re-routing of the communications decided after a meeting of the Crisis Management Team, thus allowing all participants to access the recovery system.

Immediately after the activation of the disaster recovery center, the Support and Recovery Teams activated the applications in the disaster recovery site and proceeded with the verification of the existence of information that resulted from the previous processing, as well as the accessibility to the services. After this the services were made available to the participants that they carried out testing activities using their terminals in their offices. These activities consisted of queries and data entry operations as well as information upload and download using the file transfer functions and real time messages of the STD system.

During the tests no critical issues were identified that could jeopardize the functioning of Euronext Securities Porto’s backup systems in a real disaster situation. This asserts the adequacy of the Business Continuity Plan of Euronext Securities Porto, as well as, of the disaster recovery data center.

All the activities executed according to a predefined test plan, which was thoroughly carried out. The testing was concluded with success, which was recognized by all internal and external participants.

This result reinforces once more the engagement of Euronext Securities Porto in satisfying international recommendations and good practices for Business Continuity, thus contributing to the mitigation of the risks associated with possible disasters. This achievement contributes to the continuity of the business and the safety and reliability of the market structures, strengthening the trust of the investors and the participants and benefiting, in the end, the whole Portuguese Financial Market.

Taking into account the current geopolitical and economic context, Euronext Securities Porto has decided to adjust the price list to be applied to the services provided to Financial Intermediaries and the Price List to be applied to the services provided to Issuers, in order to cope with the increase in costs caused by inflation which, according to the latest information from the Bank of Portugal and international organisations, is estimated to exceed 3.5% in 2024.

Therefore, as of 1 January 2024, the fees charged by Euronext Securities Porto will be updated by 2.7%, which is below the forecast inflation rate. Euronext Securities Porto will continue to internalise part of the increase in costs caused by the effect of inflationary pressure in Portugal.

It was also decided to change the following fees:

• the family discount is increased from 5% to 7.5% for a total annual volume of settlement instructions carried out in T2S exceeding 12 million. Euronext Securities Porto created, in July 202, a family discount with the aim of encouraging direct participation by financial intermediaries in the 4 CSDs of Euronext Group.
• the minimum maintenance is increased from €105,90 to 200,00€ per year. This fee is charged whenever the monthly maintenance fees do not fulfil the minimum annual maintenance fee established.
• with the aim of encouraging issuers of securities issued in certificates form to convert these securities into book-entry securities, the special management fee for certificates securities was increased from €0.26 to €0.325.

Euronext Securities Porto continues to invest in updating its technology and in the talent of its human resources to support the needs of its clients, as well as maintaining high levels of investment to cope with operational changes resulting from new regulations and European projects, particularly those led by the ECB, with an impact on Euronext Securities Porto’s activity.