The central securities depository system in Italy

This chapter focuses on the Italian central securities depository system and its securities holding and settlement processes. The first section provides some introductory remarks on the Italian legal framework. The second section concerns securities dematerialization and custody: the role the Italian CSD plays at the top-tier level of securities holding chains, how intermediaries involved in holding chains keep track on behalf of final investors of securities transfers and the legal requirements imposed on the CSD. The third section focuses on the relationship between intermediaries, final investors, and the securities credited to their accounts, the enforceability against third parties of securities transfers and the exercise of the rights attached to the securities. The fourth and last section intends to provide some insight on the evolving topic of the implementation in the CSD infrastructure of the distributed ledger technology (DLT), whose future developments are shaped by the newly adopted EU Regulation on a pilot regime for market infrastructures based on distributed ledger technology.