(Editor’s note: In this Q&A, Steve O’Hanlon, CEO of Numerix, reviews some key trends and events of 2016, and looks forward to the rest of this year and beyond. For the road ahead, O’Hanlon foresees a lot of regulatory uncertainty, which will complicate many matters. Numerix won the Best Pricing or Valuation Solution award of… Read More >>
BNP Paribas, Société Générale & Others Launch LiquidShare
Major European Players Back LiquidShare A European blockchain startup with a post-trade focus, LiquidShare, is being created via the support of BNP Paribas, CACEIS, Caisse des Dépôts, Euroclear, Euronext, S2Iem, Société Générale and Paris Europlace. The financial technology venture is the result of a partnership launched by its shareholders in June 2016 to develop a… Read More >>
CFTC Issues Open-Ended Relief for Fixing Swaps
The CFTC has issued another in a series of no-action letters that allows swap execution facilities (SEFs) and designated contract markets (DCMs) to fix clerical and operational errors that caused swap transactions to be rejected for clearing and thus voided. In addition, the side-stepping of key regulatory requirements will also permit SEFs and DCMs to… Read More >>
EC Proposes Lighter Regulatory Load for Derivatives
The European Commission’s recently proposed changes to the European Market Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR) not only makes the legislation “simpler and more proportionate,” but also aims to lift some of the compliance burden on smaller financial services firms, corporates and pension funds. The amendments cover a broad range including streamlined reporting obligations, improvements to the quality… Read More >>
Client Cleared Trades Part of Mexican Peso Compression Cycle
In a pioneering effort, client cleared trades were included in a triReduce Mexican Peso (MXN) compression cycle via CME Clearing, according to officials at TriOptima, a vendor offering risk mitigation support for over the counter (OTC) derivatives markets. This latest cycle involved 17 participants, officials say. Client cleared trades are transactions that a clearing broker… Read More >>
Euronext Wants to Buy LCH Clearnet for $531 Million
Exchanges conglomerate Euronext is making an “irrevocable all-cash offer” to acquire all of LCH.Clearnet Group Ltd., a central counterparty clearinghouse (CCP), from the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) for €510 million ($531.3 million) in an effort to achieve pre-tax operating “cost synergies of €13 million ($13.5 million) and additional opportunities for revenue synergies,” according to… Read More >>
E.U. Regulators Fear Combined LSE-DB Will Be a Monopoly
The European Commission has narrowed its focus into the £21 billion ($26 billion) merger of the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and Deutsche Börse to derivatives clearing, dropping many of its previous competition concerns from its investigation launched in September. They included exchange-traded products, the licensing of indexes and trading of German government bonds. The main… Read More >>
CME Clearing Europe Gets DCO Green Light
CME Clearing Europe (CMECE), the London-based derivative clearinghouse, was granted registration as a derivatives clearing organization (DCO) by the CFTC, making it the seventh such foreign organization to receive the designation and the 16th overall. As both an authorized central counterparty clearinghouse (CCP) under the European Market Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR) regime and a registered DCO,… Read More >>
New Rules Mean New Ops Model for Initial Margining
(New rules for initial margining for non-centrally cleared over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives went into effect September 1 when a new margin framework took hold via the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) and the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO). Regulators around the world have been to implement changes for firms trading in these instruments. Chris… Read More >>
E.U. Opens Deep Dive into Deutsche Börse-LSE Merger
While non-European authorities have given the thumbs up, European Commission officials have just announced that they are opening “an in-depth investigation” into the proposed merger between the Deutsche Börse Group and London Stock Exchange Group (LSE) to see if the combined organization would limit competition, putting the marriage in conflict with the EU Merger Regulation…. Read More >>
