CHICAGO, March 5, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- CME Group, the
world's leading and most diverse derivatives marketplace, today
announced that it set new monthly records for clearing interest
rate swaps (IRS) and credit default swaps (CDS). For the
month of February, the company cleared $150.1 billion in combined OTC IRS and CDS
volume, a 142% increase over the previous record monthly total of
$61.9 billion set in November
2011.
CME Group provides the leading IRS and CDS clearing service by
U.S. customer volume. As of March 2,
2012, the company has cleared more than $400 billion in OTC IRS and CDS through its
multi-asset class clearing solution since launch.
Additionally, open interest stands at $196
billion in IRS and $32.9
billion in CDS.
"We continue to see more buy side firms regularly clearing their
OTC trades at CME Group, and in February we saw another strong
volume uptick from customers who had not previously been actively
clearing," said Laurent Paulhac, CME Group Managing Director, OTC
Products & Services. "Customers are voluntarily choosing to
clear at CME Group ahead of the mandate, with over 1,300 buy side
accounts holding open interest."
The company also announced earlier in the month that it would
expand its already robust clearing collateral program, effective
March 12, 2012, to allow corporate
bonds to be pledged as initial margin collateral for Cleared OTC
Interest Rate Swaps. With this expansion, Clearing Members will be
able to post up to $3 billion in
select assets, including corporate bonds, with specific limits
determined by the needs and margin requirements of their
customers.
To learn more about CME Group's OTC clearing offering, watch our
latest video or visit our resources on IRS and CDS.
As the world's leading and most diverse derivatives marketplace,
CME Group (www.cmegroup.com) is where the world comes to manage
risk. CME Group exchanges offer the widest range of global
benchmark products across all major asset classes, including
futures and options based on interest rates, equity indexes,
foreign exchange, energy, agricultural commodities, metals, weather
and real estate. CME Group brings buyers and sellers
together through its CME Globex® electronic trading platform and
its trading facilities in New York
and Chicago. CME Group also operates CME Clearing, one of the
world's leading central counterparty clearing providers, which
offers clearing and settlement services for exchange-traded
contracts, as well as for over-the-counter derivatives transactions
through CME ClearPort®. These products and services ensure that
businesses everywhere can substantially mitigate counterparty
credit risk in both listed and over-the-counter derivatives
markets.
CME Group is a trademark of CME Group Inc. The Globe Logo, CME,
Globex and Chicago Mercantile Exchange are trademarks of Chicago
Mercantile Exchange Inc. CBOT and the Chicago Board of Trade are trademarks of the
Board of Trade of the City of
Chicago, Inc. NYMEX, New York Mercantile Exchange and
ClearPort are registered trademarks of New York Mercantile
Exchange, Inc. COMEX is a trademark of Commodity Exchange,
Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their
respective owners. Further information about CME Group (NASDAQ:
CME) and its products can be found at www.cmegroup.com.
CME-G
SOURCE CME Group