LCH clearing volumes skyrocket in 2020 12 January 2021UK Reporter: Natalie Turner
Image: elen31/adobe.stock.com
Global clearinghouse LCH delivered strong volumes throughout 2020 and launched several new products and services to support effective risk management and capital efficiencies, as well as continuing to support global regulatory reform of reference rates.
LCH RepoClear, which offers clearing for UK government bonds and repos, operates an open-access model, connecting to multiple trading venues and international central securities depositories, processed €205.4 trillion in nominal during 2020 across LCH.
In 2020, RepoClear onboarded new members including in Canada and Luxembourg, as well as welcoming the European Investment Bank as the first supranational clearing member of LCH SA.
LCH SwapAgent, a service for non-cleared derivatives processing, saw its membership increase from 16 to 29 members during the year and the service registered $2 trillion in notional at the end of 2020, up from $0.7 trillion in 2019.
SwapClear processed $1.1 quadrillion in notional, from a record 6.4 million trades. $747.2 trillion in notional, and 5.2 million trades were compressed over the period, enabling members and their clients to benefit from capital and operational efficiencies.
During the year, LCH continued to support the global efforts to reform reference rates, completing the switch to euro short-term rate (€STR) discounting in July 2020, with €81.3 trillion in notional transitioned. The transition to secured overnight financing rate (SOFR) discounting saw $120 trillion in notional transitioning to the risk-free rate in October 2020.
SwapClear also became the first clearing house to offer Singapore dollar swaps benchmarked to Singapore overnight rate average (SORA) and launched clearing for Israeli Shekel-denominated swaps in September 2020. SwapClear now offers clearing for interest rate derivatives across 27 currencies.
CDSClear showed growth with €2.4 trillion in options, index and single name notional cleared in 2020, up from €1.5 trillion in 2019.
Across LCH, a record 2 billion trade sides were cleared at EquityClear in 2020, an increase from 1.4 billion in 2019. At LCH Limited, EquityClear implemented a new LSEG Technology Post Trade Platform, which processed all-time record equity clearing volumes in March 2020.
Daniel Maguire, group director, post trade, LSEG and Group CEO at LCH, says: “2020 has been an unprecedented year, with COVID-19 having a far-reaching impact across the world. As a systemically important institution, LCH’s commitment to ensuring financial stability is paramount.
“Our focus has remained on the wellbeing of our people, ensuring operational resilience and continuity of service to our customers. We are pleased to have delivered another strong performance in terms of our clearing volumes this year.”
NO FEE, NO RISK 100% ON RETURNSIf you invest in only one securities finance news source this
year, make sure it is your free subscription to Securities Finance Times
Image: elen31/adobe.stock.com 