Six clients have cleared executed OTC IRS trades on SwapClear in a various maturities and currencies, including USD, EUR and GBP, LCH.Clearnet said.
The 12 FCMs connected to the service include: Bank of America Merrill Lynch; Barclays Capital; BNP Paribas Securities; Citigroup; Credit Suisse Securities USA; Deutsche Bank Securities; Goldman Sachs; JP Morgan Futures; Morgan Stanley; Nomura Securities; RBS Securities and UBS Securities.
In addition, HSBC Securities USA has also confirmed its intention to join shortly as an FCM.
According to LCH.Clearnet, with this service, US clients will benefit from reduced counterparty risk, default protection, proven default management expertise, portability of client collateral and positions and initial margin collateral held solely in the US.
SwapClear’s US clients will also be able to access the service’s product range, which covers more than 90% of the ‘plain vanilla’ IRS market, and which will be expanded later this year to cover USD denominated amortizing swaps.
SwapClear currently clears trades in 14 currencies and tenors out to 50 years.
LCH.Clearnet US Sales and Marketing head Floyd Converse said that the US clients are increasingly focused on how the regulations resulting from the implementation of the Dodd-Frank Act will affect them.
"SwapClear FCM provides the broadest OTC interest rate swap product scope of any clearing service in the world. Features such as flexible payment dates, flexible LIBOR indices, OIS discounting and 14 currencies are not matched by another clearer. These are available within the protections of an FCM framework; regulated by the CFTC and subject to U.S. law," Converse said.
