T+1 Settlement Mandate Creates Compliance-Driven Automation Imperative
#1The SEC's amendment to Rule 15c6-1, effective May 28, 2024, compressed the standard settlement cycle from T+2 to T+1 for most securities transactions. This eliminated the slack time window that had previously allowed manual human review steps in trade confirmation and affirmation workflows. Brokerages that had been deferring back-office automation investments were legally compelled to remove human checkpoints from their trade processing pipelines or face settlement failures and associated regulatory penalties. Industry data from DTCC shows same-day affirmation rates rose from approximately 70% pre-mandate to over 90% post-mandate — that 20-point gap represents workflows that were forcibly automated.