ABN Amro is offering testing facilities to banks wishing to participate in continuous linked settlement (CLS) as the foreign exchange sector prepares to go live with the delayed CLS initiative later this year.

The industry initiative is designed to cut the time lag of settling a currency trade from the current two days down to nearly real time in the 11 eligible currencies that account for nearly 85% of FX transactions. The process will be overseen by CLS Bank, an industry-funded central counterparty based in New York.