Euroclear has launched EasyFocus+, an enhanced version of its exception management platform, developed in collaboration with Meritsoft, a Cognizant business, and Taskize, the Euroclear-owned investment operations collaboration platform. The initiative is aimed at supporting the industry’s transition to T+1 settlement in Europe by October 2027.
Running on Microsoft’s cloud infrastructure, EasyFocus+ integrates AI-driven analytics and real-time resolution capabilities across all of Euroclear’s Central Securities Depositories (CSDs), which account for over 60% of EU settlement activity. The platform is designed to help financial institutions reduce settlement fails, identify root causes of mismatches, and resolve exceptions more efficiently.
EasyFocus+ incorporates Meritsoft’s Instruction Tracking and Exception Management (ITEM) solution and Taskize’s collaboration platform, offering clients a unified interface for managing all settlement instructions. The tool also enables benchmarking of internal performance and industry-wide comparisons to help firms address recurring issues.
The collaboration forms part of Euroclear’s broader strategy to reduce market fragmentation and promote operational harmonisation across European financial infrastructure. By offering an open and interconnected platform, Euroclear aims to enhance efficiency, reduce operational risk, and support the development of the EU’s Savings and Investments Union (SIU).
In light of the announcement, TradingTech Insight sat down with Benedicte Degraeve, Product Manager, Transaction Processing at Euroclear, Daniel Carpenter, CEO of Meritsoft, a Cognizant company, and Helen Adair, Chief Product Officer of Taskize, to learn more about the EasyFocus+ initiative.
TTI: Can you elaborate on the origins and development of EasyFocus+?
BD: EasyFocus+ is an evolution of the original EasyFocus product, which came out of a Euroclear hackathon in 2022. The initial idea was to explore how AI and our extensive settlement data could be used to predict settlement fails. That concept was picked up by our innovation team and developed with a group of clients. We started by focusing on matching – the very first step in the settlement lifecycle – because without a match, you can’t settle.
We built a model that looks at historical patterns of similar instructions to predict whether a new instruction will match. That gave rise to two key data points: the matching score, which indicates how likely a new instruction is to match, and the matching quantile, which gives a timing perspective; essentially, whether an instruction is progressing as expected compared to similar past cases.
The goal was to give clients more meaningful, predictive insight than a basic ‘unmatched’ status, which doesn’t explain whether there’s really a problem or who needs to act. Clients confirmed this was valuable, especially as we move toward T+1, where there’s only a narrow window to resolve exceptions. So we went further and developed AI-based diagnostics that assess whether the other leg of the transaction is present, and if so, why it might not be matching.
In Europe’s complex, fragmented environment, where cross-border settlement is common, firms need more than just alerts, they need tools that help detect, understand, and eventually resolve issues automatically. That’s the direction we’re taking with EasyFocus+.
TTI: What do Taskize and Meritsoft bring to the collaboration?
HA: Taskize is already a secure, external portal within Euroclear’s infrastructure, so integrating with EasyFocus+ was a natural progression. We saw an opportunity to combine EasyFocus’s predictive analytics with Taskize’s collaboration tools, giving clients not only insight into exceptions, but a way to resolve them quickly within the same environment. This connection enables a more seamless workflow, which is essential as firms face tighter deadlines under T+1.
DC: Meritsoft brings long-standing expertise in post-trade processing, from settlement fails and interest claims to CSDR compliance. We were already working with Taskize on query resolution, so extending that collaboration with Euroclear made strategic sense. By integrating predictive analytics, exception tracking, and resolution capabilities into a single platform, we’re helping firms move from fragmented processes to a unified solution that supports better performance, lower costs, and greater operational control, particularly important in the complex European post-trade environment.
TTI: How does EasyFocus+ use AI and data analytics to support exception management and settlement efficiency, particularly in the context of T+1?
BD: EasyFocus+ combines two core features: AI-driven exception detection and settlement efficiency benchmarking. On the AI side, we’re deploying our existing predictive models, originally developed for EasyFocus, into a cloud-based solution using Meritsoft’s ITEM (Instruction Tracking and Exception Management) platform. This will run across all Euroclear CSDs, allowing us to detect exceptions at scale, much earlier in the lifecycle.
We’re particularly focused on identifying issues like place-of-settlement mismatches, which are critical under T+1. By capturing at least one leg of the transaction early, we can begin generating predictive data to help clients act faster. On top of that, our integration with Taskize will support the automation of issue resolution, routing tasks directly to the right desk, so front office teams can start addressing problems immediately.
Alongside that, we’re introducing benchmarking tools developed through our settlement efficiency working group. Clients will be able to self-serve diagnostics to identify structural issues, such as manual processes, system breaks, time zone gaps, an so on, and decide where to invest in automation ahead of the 2027 deadline. Together, these features aim to give firms the insight and tools they need to operate more proactively and efficiently in a T+1 environment.
DC: Prioritisation is just as important as prediction when it comes to settlement fails. Everyone has fails. The question is, which ones need attention now? The AI in EasyFocus+ doesn’t just flag potential issues, it learns from historical patterns to help firms focus on what matters most. For example, if a fail typically resolves itself within a particular time frame, the system deprioritises it. But if there’s a high likelihood that a specific trade will persist unresolved, it gets flagged as a priority. It’s about using AI not just to detect and explain issues, but to help clients act more intelligently and efficiently. The goal is to make that insight available as soon as users log in, with everything they need already built in.
TTI: Finally, what practical steps do clients need to take to implement EasyFocus+, and how easy is it to get started?
BD: Our aim is to minimise disruption to clients’ IT roadmaps. Euroclear is investing in the data feeds and making clients’ data available through a simple web portal interface, so they can access the benefits of EasyFocus+ without major integration work. For firms interested in extending the functionality to non-Euroclear markets, that would likely involve additional data sharing and some internal IT effort, but the core solution is designed to deliver value with minimal impact from the outset.
DC: We’ve focused on keeping the onboarding process as simple as possible. If you’re a Euroclear client, you can speak to your relationship manager and become an early adopter – no hardware, no integration, no in-house tech involvement. It’s all about getting ahead of the curve without the usual implementation hurdles.
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