Posts tagged 'clearing houses'

Britain to sue ECB over threat to City

Kate is FT AV’s Asia Correspondent. She joined FT Alphaville in mid-2011 after carrying out various roles in the FT’s London office since 2005: interactive editor, companies reporter, and founding editor of the FT’s Energy Source blog.

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| Sep 15 2011 04:51 | Comment |

Britain is to sue the European Central Bank for setting rules that allegedly handicap the City of London and would force one of the world’s largest clearing houses to decamp operations to the euro area, the FT reports. An ECB policy paper, released in the summer, requires clearing houses to be based in the eurozone if they handle more than 5 per cent of the market in a euro-denominated financial product. The unprecedented legal action underlines the depth of ministerial concern over the ECB policy, which comes as the UK engages in a turf war with France and Germany over Europe’s financial markets infrastructure.

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What do you mean, CCPs might be thinly capitalised?

Joseph joined FT Alphaville way back in March 2010. He likes all the politically and legally fiddly bits of finance. He also likes credit, rates, global macro, tail risk, and all that stuff. (You should email him story ideas. He’ll take anything.)

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| May 24 2011 17:25 | Comment |

Via Bloomberg (H/T Chris Whittall):

Lawmakers in the [European] Parliament voted that clearinghouses should have to hold capital of at least 10 million euros ($14.1 million) to absorb possible losses… Read more

EU probing CDS market for collusion — full statement [updated]

Joseph joined FT Alphaville way back in March 2010. He likes all the politically and legally fiddly bits of finance. He also likes credit, rates, global macro, tail risk, and all that stuff. (You should email him story ideas. He’ll take anything.)

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| Apr 29 2011 12:06 | Comment |

Friday’s stunning announcement from the EU Commission below:

The European Commission has opened two antitrust investigations concerning the Credit Default Swaps market. CDS are financial instruments meant to protect investors in the event a company or State they have invested in default on their payments. They are also used as speculative tools. In the first case, the Commission will examine whether 16 investment banks and Markit, the leading provider of financial information in the CDS market, have colluded and/or may hold and abuse a dominant position in order to control the financial information on CDS. If proven such behaviour would be a violation of EU antitrust rules. In the second case, the Commission opened proceedings against 9 of the banks and ICE Clear Europe, the leading clearing house for CDS. Here, the Commission will investigate in particular whether the preferential tariffs granted by ICE to the 9 banks have the effect of locking them in the ICE system to the detriment of competitors. Read more

Proliferation of clearing houses seen increasing risk

Cardiff writes mostly about US macroeconomic issues, with daily excursions into other topics about which he claim no expertise. Before Alphaville, Cardiff spent a little more than two years as a reporter at Dow Jones Financial News covering investment banking, asset management, and private equity. Along the way he has written freelance pieces on a variety of other topics from behavioural psychology to Muay Thai, the latter also being a personal interest that involves frequently getting kicked in the shins (and torso, and head).

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| Apr 14 2011 05:15 | Comment |

Clearing houses should not be allowed to proliferate across the globe amid post-crisis financial reforms because that would spread key derivatives markets too thinly, hampering regulators’ ability to have a clear view of risk, derivatives dealers and banks have warned, the FT writes. The International Swaps and Derivatives Association (Isda), at its annual meeting, highlighted concerns emerging over the role of clearing houses in the financial system as regulators in G20 nations push new rules to clean up after the 2008 crisis. Read more

Dear RepoClear Member, Re: Portugal [updated]

Joseph joined FT Alphaville way back in March 2010. He likes all the politically and legally fiddly bits of finance. He also likes credit, rates, global macro, tail risk, and all that stuff. (You should email him story ideas. He’ll take anything.)

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| Mar 25 2011 12:39 | Comment |

We were worrying recently that LCH.Clearnet would hike margin requirements for trading Portuguese bonds (hence, a sell-off).

Something else has come up: Read more

Mi casa es su casa – Spanish clearing and collateral

Tracy Alloway used to be deputy editor of FT Alphaville. Here she learned the details of derivatives, the absurdities of accounting and the various structures of ... erm ... structured finance. She now covers big US banks for the FT paper, including Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. She pops up on FT Alphaville every once in a while.

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| Aug 25 2010 09:56 | Comment |

Has LCH.Clearnet single-handedly saved the Spanish financial system?

Early this month, and as the FT Trading Room reported, the Anglo-French clearing house announced a new service for Spanish government bonds and repos. And Spanish banks, as we all know now, have plenty of Spanish bonds. Read more

Derivatives reform: now what?

Cardiff writes mostly about US macroeconomic issues, with daily excursions into other topics about which he claim no expertise. Before Alphaville, Cardiff spent a little more than two years as a reporter at Dow Jones Financial News covering investment banking, asset management, and private equity. Along the way he has written freelance pieces on a variety of other topics from behavioural psychology to Muay Thai, the latter also being a personal interest that involves frequently getting kicked in the shins (and torso, and head).

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| Aug 12 2010 16:55 | Comment |

You may have heard that the signing of financial reform in the US wasn’t just the end of a long and difficult process but also the beginning of another, with a host of federal agencies given discretion to study and define the rules for the areas they oversee.

Thursday’s FT includes a comprehensive article looking at the unresolved issues for derivatives, and we think it’s worth highlighting a few of its main points. Read more

Uncertainty at the (CDS) margin

Joseph joined FT Alphaville way back in March 2010. He likes all the politically and legally fiddly bits of finance. He also likes credit, rates, global macro, tail risk, and all that stuff. (You should email him story ideas. He’ll take anything.)

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| Aug 11 2010 16:30 | Comment |

Newsflash! Agency specialising in credit ratings says credit derivatives might not factor in fundamentals properly. Compared to… err, credit ratings, perhaps.

But Fitch Ratings did have some intriguing points to make about CDS margins on Wednesday. Read more

Sovereign CDS all a-lite at LCH.Clearnet

Tracy Alloway used to be deputy editor of FT Alphaville. Here she learned the details of derivatives, the absurdities of accounting and the various structures of ... erm ... structured finance. She now covers big US banks for the FT paper, including Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. She pops up on FT Alphaville every once in a while.

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| Jul 29 2010 09:00 | Comment |

To post collateral or not to post collateral?

That is the sovereign derivatives question of the week. Read more

Will derivatives reform take us from CCPs to GSEs?

Joseph joined FT Alphaville way back in March 2010. He likes all the politically and legally fiddly bits of finance. He also likes credit, rates, global macro, tail risk, and all that stuff. (You should email him story ideas. He’ll take anything.)

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| Jun 30 2010 16:53 | Comment |

Confused about just how the Dodd-Frank Act would actually change derivatives markets? Happily, Barclays Capital’s Rajiv Setia and team have tried an answer.

Not so happily, the answer is a bit disconcerting. Read more

Singapore aims to be clearing hub

Tracy Alloway used to be deputy editor of FT Alphaville. Here she learned the details of derivatives, the absurdities of accounting and the various structures of ... erm ... structured finance. She now covers big US banks for the FT paper, including Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. She pops up on FT Alphaville every once in a while.

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| Jun 28 2010 03:38 | Comment |

Singapore is pushing to become an Asian hub for derivatives clearing and to poach business from Europe and the US as regulation reshapes markets, the FT says. Singapore’s Monetary Authority is discussing ways of expanding the city-state’s clearing capacity, possibly by allowing international derivatives clearing houses to compete with the two existing Singapore exchange clearers, according to financial sector execs. Read more

Derivatives users prepare for reform finale

Joseph joined FT Alphaville way back in March 2010. He likes all the politically and legally fiddly bits of finance. He also likes credit, rates, global macro, tail risk, and all that stuff. (You should email him story ideas. He’ll take anything.)

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| Jun 21 2010 10:04 | Comment |

Caterpillar Inc., Cargill Inc., and Sacramento, Calif. are emerging as unlikely, but crucial players in the closing stages of financial reform, the WSJ reports. All use derivatives — which now face being pushed onto standardised clearing houses or exchanges, affecting any company which uses them to hedge risk. House and Senate politicians aim to finish negotiations on a final bill by Thursday, Reuters reports, but debates over consumer financial protection are also likely to weigh in this week. Read more

Clearing house swap-downs

Tracy Alloway used to be deputy editor of FT Alphaville. Here she learned the details of derivatives, the absurdities of accounting and the various structures of ... erm ... structured finance. She now covers big US banks for the FT paper, including Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. She pops up on FT Alphaville every once in a while.

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| Apr 16 2010 09:00 | Comment |

Someone call in a ref, FT Alphaville says. It’s the clash of the clearing houses, who are trading blows over who has the best standards for the margin deposits houses require from their customers in order to cover the risk of default. The tensions are clear: regulators want high margins, but houses want to stay competitive. Read more

LCH.Clearnet warns on loose standards

Tracy Alloway used to be deputy editor of FT Alphaville. Here she learned the details of derivatives, the absurdities of accounting and the various structures of ... erm ... structured finance. She now covers big US banks for the FT paper, including Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. She pops up on FT Alphaville every once in a while.

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| Apr 16 2010 03:28 | Comment |

LCH.Clearnet has accused some of its global rivals of using loose standards to assess the amount of insurance traders must take out against a catastrophic default, in an apparent attempt by Europe’s largest independent clearing house to win business, the FT says. The development is a sign some clearing houses are trying to highlight the dangers of “competing on margin” – that is, lowering the minimum funds that must be posted by market participants to a clearing house to guard against failures. Read more

The derivatives ding-dong waiting in the Dodd bill

Joseph joined FT Alphaville way back in March 2010. He likes all the politically and legally fiddly bits of finance. He also likes credit, rates, global macro, tail risk, and all that stuff. (You should email him story ideas. He’ll take anything.)

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| Apr 13 2010 19:19 | Comment |

Wall Street has a new supporter in its fight against onerous regulation: Republican Senator Judd Gregg. FT Alphaville weighs some of his comments. Read more

A $3,000bn shift in the interest rate swaps market [Corrected]

| Mar 12 2010 16:21 | Comment |

This is a big one: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will start using central counterparty clearing on their massive interest rate swaps portfolio, according to a Reuters report.

It’s worth noting that the combined size of Fannie and Freddie’s interest rate portfolio is $3,000bn – or about than 0.5 per cent per cent of the gross market value of the global interest rate swap market, according to BIS data as at June 2009. Read more

Sovereign CDS: Do we see the dust — clearing?

Joseph joined FT Alphaville way back in March 2010. He likes all the politically and legally fiddly bits of finance. He also likes credit, rates, global macro, tail risk, and all that stuff. (You should email him story ideas. He’ll take anything.)

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| Mar 11 2010 18:41 | Comment |

And the war over credit default swaps rages on.

On Thursday, Europe wheeled out out the big guns, with four of the region’s leaders demanding an inquiry into the CDS market. Read more