Fails repair is the day-to-day activity of resolving securities trades that did not settle on their intended date, or that look likely to miss it. A settlement failure usually has one of a few causes: the two sides' instructions do not match, the seller lacks the securities, the buyer lacks cash, or an instruction is missing, late or on hold. Settlement teams work from exception reports produced by custodians and depositories, find the cause and correct it.
Typical repairs include amending a wrong quantity, price, date or account so that settlement instruction matching succeeds, chasing a counterparty to instruct, borrowing securities or recalling them from loan to cover a short position, arranging funding, and agreeing partial settlement of what is available. In the European Union, each day of delay can incur a settlement penalty. The wider control framework is described under settlement fail management.