Single point of connectivity to all FX CCPs now available
MarkitSERV, the most widely used electronic trade processing service for OTC derivative transactions, today unveiled its gateway for foreign exchange (FX) industry participants to route trades to central clearing counterparties (CCPs) worldwide. From a single point of access, executing brokers, clearing brokers and buy-side firms can match, legally confirm and route OTC FX transactions to the CCPs of their choice.
The FX clearing gateway service was developed in close consultation with major market participants, and MarkitSERV has completed industry end-to-end testing cycles and has been certified by, or has established links to, CME, LCH.Clearnet and Singapore Exchange (SGX). MarkitSERV will continue to build connectivity to other CCPs worldwide as they begin to clear FX.
MarkitSERV’s clearing solution incorporates workflows designed to meet the diverse functional requirements of all participants – executing brokers, clearing brokers, the buy-side and CCPs ¬– and includes full support for client clearing and allocations.
Roger Rutherford, CME Group’s managing director of FX Products, said: “We continue to work closely with all market participants on providing clearing services for a variety of foreign exchange instruments. Connecting to MarkitSERV helps us extend our clearing services to the global FX market.”
Gavin Wells, ceo of LCH.Clearnet’s ForexClear service, said: “We are delighted to be working with MarkitSERV to give our members and their clients the connectivity they need. MarkitSERV’s agility will enable LCH.Clearnet to bring our wealth of OTC experience to a broad range of products and participants across the FX market.”
Muthukrishnan Ramaswami, president of Singapore Exchange (SGX), said: “SGX launched a service to clear FX forwards (non-deliverable) in October 2011. Our members chose MarkitSERV to match and route transactions to SGX and we will be working with MarkitSERV as we expand our FX clearing service throughout 2012.”
Keith Tippell, co-head of FX Product Management at MarkitSERV, said: “FX non-deliverable forwards and options are expected to be mandated for central clearing as part of the new regulatory landscape. As with other asset classes, MarkitSERV’s middleware platform is central to the clearing process and we are pleased to offer the connectivity and tools the industry needs to efficiently transmit trades to all FX clearing venues. MarkitSERV has over 2,500 buy-side clients and we have been careful to ensure that their requirements have been factored into the design of our clearing solution.”
MarkitSERV’s trade processing services for FX include connectivity to central clearing venues and an array of trade capture, post-trade messaging and workflow tools. In September 2011, MarkitSERV acquired Logicscope and its TradeSTP trade processing technology. TradeSTP’s extensive post trade connectivity to more than 70 liquidity providers (banks, brokers, exchanges and electronic crossing networks) and 400 financial institutions (banks, hedge funds, asset managers and corporates) is now fully integrated within the MarkitSERV platform.
Beyond FX, MarkitSERV is already a primary conduit to CCPs. MarkitSERV has been certified by, or has established links to, LCH.Clearnet, CME, SGX and IDCG for direct submission of interest rate derivative transactions for clearing and to CME, ICE Clear Credit, ICE Clear Europe and Eurex for credit derivatives. MarkitSERV is actively engaged with over a dozen other CCPs worldwide and will continue to establish connectivity to others as they launch.
