LCH.Clearnet Takes CDSClear to New Jurisdictions

LCH.Clearnet has announced that the clearinghouse will take its CDSClear service international, building on its current domestic service offered in France since March 2010.

CDSClear currently clears for BNP Paribas, Crédit Agricole, Naxtixis, and Société Générale, and will now work across multiple jurisdictions for 10 further financial institutions: Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Barclays, Citi, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley and UBS.

The expanded service clears 129 different series 5 contracts for Markit iTraxx Europe, HiVol, and Crossover indices products, and will also include unique default management processes uniquely tailored to address the specific characteristics of credit derivatives.

The expansion also comes as LCH readies further enhancements to the CDSClear offering, including European single-name credit default swap (CDS) intra-day clearing and a US client clearing offering.

"This latest development in CDSClear complements our existing interest rate swap and foreign exchange (FX) OTC offerings enabling LCH.Clearnet to offer clearing services across the broadest range of OTC derivative asset classes and geographies in the market. … The CDS market opportunity is significant and this launch both augments our offering and is a major step forward," says Ian Axe, CEO of LCH.Clearnet Group.