Break (reconciliation break)

Roles that need it

• Reconciliations Analyst
• Settlements Analyst
• Fund Accountant
• Investment Operations Analyst
• Collateral Management Analyst

Skills it belongs to

• Period-end close and reconciliations
• Investigative reasoning on anomalies
• Attention to detail

Related concepts

• ReconciliationReconciliation is the regular comparison of two sets of records that should agree, such as a firm's securities positions and the custodian's statement, cash ledgers and bank statements, or trade details with a counterparty, followed by investigation of differences (breaks). It is a key control in operations and finance.
• Settlement failA settlement fail is a transaction that does not settle on its intended settlement date, because securities or cash are missing or the instructions do not match. Under the Central Securities Depositories Regulation (CSDR), fails in EU CSDs trigger daily cash penalties and reporting, and may lead to a buy-in.
• IBOR (Investment book of record)The investment book of record (IBOR) is the record of an asset manager's positions, cash and exposures used by portfolio managers and traders during the day, including trades not yet settled. The accounting book of record (ABOR) holds the official end-of-day positions used for the net asset value; differences between the two are reconciled.
• Security masterA security master is the central database of reference data on financial instruments: identifiers (such as the International Securities Identification Number, ISIN), issuer, currency, coupon, maturity, asset class and corporate action terms. Downstream systems for trading, settlement, accounting and reporting take their instrument data from it, so errors spread widely.

Sources

• Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2017/392 (CSD requirements), EUR-Lex (external site) accessed 31 Oct 2026
• Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) No 149/2013 (EMIR risk mitigation), EUR-Lex (external site) accessed 31 Oct 2026

Updated 31 Oct 2026.