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The UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has required ICE's benchmark arm to continue publishing US dollar Libor benchmarks until the end of September, after which the rate will be discontinued. The FCA has no plans to extend publication beyond this date. ICE has stated that the synthetic Libor settings, which are required to be published using a synthetic methodology, are not representative of the underlying market or economic reality. ICE will be launching new swap rates next month to be used as benchmarks in financial contracts and instruments. Additionally, ICE plans to launch a clearing service for US Treasury securities and repurchasing agreements in response to upcoming regulations. [Extracted from the article]

London Reporting House (LRH) has launched a platform that aims to provide greater transparency into the repo market. The platform operates on a "give-to-get" model, using anonymized and aggregated data from clients' Securities Financing Transactions Regulation (SFTR) to produce data for risk management and finance functions. LRH did not disclose the names of the banks or the number of firms supporting the initiative. The platform is expected to enhance liquidity, provide confidence, and improve understanding of risks in the repo markets. This launch comes at a time when financial institutions are seeking increased transparency and data across all markets. [Extracted from the article]

Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) has announced plans to launch a clearing service for US Treasury securities and repurchasing agreements in response to upcoming regulations. The new service will be separate from ICE's existing clearing service for credit default swaps (CDS) and will have its own rulebook, membership, risk management framework, financial and liquidity resources, and risk committee. ICE Clear Credit, the leading clearing house for CDS globally, will leverage its experience and compliance with regulatory regimes to offer Treasury clearing services. The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is mandating the expansion of Treasury cash and repo clearing to enhance market resilience. The expansion of central clearing in US Treasuries is set to begin in late 2025. [Extracted from the article]

Tradeweb Markets has introduced new features that allow traders to compare spreads with overnight funding rates in its electronic repo and interest rate swap markets. The functionality has been rolled out across the sterling, euro, and US dollar markets, aiming to capitalize on interest in overnight index swap rates. Traders will also be able to automatically hedge the rates risk of repo transactions through the interest rate swap platform. Tradeweb's rates and repo markets have experienced increased volume this year due to policy uncertainty driving rates positioning globally. [Extracted from the article]

Eurex, a Frankfurt-based exchange owned by Deutsche Boerse, has expanded its repo service by adding a new basket of green bonds. The basket includes 80 green bonds from sovereign and supranational issuers across seven European countries. This move is part of Eurex's efforts to support environmental, social, and governance (ESG) initiatives and promote the development of a well-functioning eco-system for green bonds. Eurex previously added green bond baskets to its repo service in 2020 and has reported strong growth in its repo service volumes. [Extracted from the article]

Broadridge, a fintech company, has had success with its distributed ledger-based repo platforms, with HSBC and UBS recently joining. This success has prompted Broadridge to expand the use of this technology to other financial products. The company aims to leverage smart contract technology to create "smart tariffs" and replicate the efficiencies seen in the repo market. The adoption of this technology by global banks has grown due to the substantial cost savings it offers. Broadridge plans to further streamline workflows and increase efficiency through smart contract integration. [Extracted from the article]

The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) has announced its readiness to support an increase in Treasury clearing volume following the approval of final rules by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) mandating cash and repo clearing. The DTCC is prepared for the expansion of the rules to cover more US government bonds and repo transactions. The SEC's approval of the final rule changes marks the beginning of the implementation process for the industry. The DTCC estimates that the SEC clearing plan will add approximately $1.6 trillion for the cleared markets, increasing the firm's US Treasury business by around a third. [Extracted from the article]

LCH's Paris-based repo clearing unit has introduced the first green bond basket to its euro-denominated general collateral clearing service. The green bond basket is part of the tri-party repo clearing service and was developed in collaboration with Banque de France and Euroclear. LCH aims to support its members' sustainability goals by offering a wider choice of liquidity pools and cross margin netting opportunities. This move follows previous additions to LCH's offerings, including a sovereign, supranational, and agency (SSA) debt basket and a government debt bucket referencing Italian bonds. LCH merged its euro-denominated RepoClear and €GCPlus collateral pools in July to enhance efficiency and reduce margin costs. [Extracted from the article]

Eurex, a German exchange, plans to update its repo margin model and allow margin offsets between repo and derivatives to attract buy-side firms like hedge funds. The goal is to remove barriers to entry faced by hedge funds using central counterparties (CCPs). Eurex's repo market grew significantly last year, outpacing the wider market, and the exchange aims to further expand its user base and increase activity. Additionally, Eurex plans to roll out an expanded version of its direct clearing service to encourage hedge fund demand. [Extracted from the article]

The Spanish exchange group, Bolsas y Mercados Espanoles (BME), has released a report calling for regulatory changes to improve the competitiveness of the Spanish derivatives market. The report suggests streamlining product authorization processes and removing marketing and trading restrictions on derivatives products. BME believes that these changes will help reverse the decline in Spanish futures and options trading over the past decade. The group has shown a willingness to modernize and take a more prominent role in European capital markets, including exploring blockchain technology and carbon offset initiatives. [Extracted from the article]

The National Stock Exchange of India (NSE) has banned four single stock equity derivatives from trading due to breaching their position limits. The futures and options on these four firms have been suspended since November 10, but the underlying stocks are still available in the cash market. The NSE has stated that clients/members can only trade in the derivative contracts of these securities to decrease their positions, and any increase in open positions will result in penal and disciplinary action. The four stocks affected by the ban are Chambal Fertilisers and Chemicals, Delta Corp, Gujarat Narmada Valley Fertilisers & Chemicals, and Multi Commodity Exchange. The ban has been imposed because the derivatives contracts in these securities have surpassed 95% of the market-wide position limit. During the ban period, no new positions are allowed for the futures and options contracts associated with these stocks. The NSE has recently expanded its commodity derivatives coverage by launching 13 metals contracts, and there have been reports of plans to restrict retail participation in the derivatives markets. Additionally, the Indian clearing house AMC Repo Clearing has introduced a triparty repurchase agreement facility in corporate debt securities to support repurchase agreement financing. [Extracted from the article]

The London Reporting House will launch next month a repo pricing service that the firm's chief executive claims will bring an unprecedented level of transparency to the opaque UK and European repo markets. LRH has said it will launch next month a repo service based on Securities Financing Transactions Regulation (SFTR) data to offer fresh insight into the European and UK markets. [Extracted from the article]

The Deutsche Boerse-owned clearing house said the Danish entity is the second central bank outside the Euro area and the fifth central bank anywhere to go live on Eurex's repo clearing service. Danmarks Nationalbank has become the first Nordic central bank and the second bank in three days to go live on Eurex's repo clearing service. [Extracted from the article]

BNY names Eurex as "first" to clear EU repo BNY Mellon has selected Eurex as the clearing house for repurchase agreements (repo) in Europe, making it the "first" to centrally clear its repo transactions outside of the US. According to Germany-based Eurex, its liquid and centrally cleared repo markets enable its clients to trade repos with over 160 registered users, including commercial and central banks, government financing agencies and supranational firms. [Extracted from the article]

Tradeweb reported an increase in repo trading activity in June as the US fixed income market continued to benefit from the elevated interest rate environment. Debt trading platform Tradeweb said daily repo trading increased 33.1% last month to a total of $491.9bn (£392.5bn). [Extracted from the article]

LSE Group-owned LCH has promoted its European head of repo and collateral to run the clearing house's French entity as it gears up to clear crypto derivatives. Poilvet-Clédière is currently LCH SA's head of RepoClear and Collateral Management, responsible for euro-denominated debt and repo clearing, a key growth area for LCH. [Extracted from the article]

Finteum said earlier this month that 19 banks have signed up to support its intraday funding platform developed in partnership with R3 ahead of Finteum's planned launch before the end of this year. Distributed ledger technology is a "must-have" rather than a "nice-to-have" in terms of problem solving in foreign exchange settlement, said the co-founder of digital asset firm R3. DLT a "must-have" to streamline FX swaps, repos - R3. [Extracted from the article]

There are incredible efficiencies to be realised by centralising liquidity management, collateral management and securities lending as they all ultimately consume the same financial resource and inventory." Fannin said, as part of Northern Trust's offering, the group is building out an inventory management capability providing clients with a real-time view of their portfolio, where their assets are and how they have been used. Dane Fannin, global head of Foreign Exchange and Securities Finance at the US group, said Northern Trust is positioning itself as an outsourced provider to firms keen to access securities finance at a lower cost. [Extracted from the article]

The securities finance industry struggles to differentiate between repurchase agreements and buy/sell back trades executed under a securities lending agreement, an expert has suggested. With the GMRA, repo transactions can be switched from manufactured payment to an adjustment of repo price if the buyer fails to make a manufactured payment, he said. The third problem is created by parties either documenting repos under securities lending agreements as cash-collateralised loans or documenting cash-collateralised securities lending under repo agreements, the co-founder said. [Extracted from the article]

Finteum has progressed with 19 global banks on its intraday funding platform, and is set to complete its first live trade by the end of 2023. Also, bank risk teams will be allowed to input intraday credit limits into the platform, to manage intraday counterparty credit risk, said the firm. [Extracted from the article]

Tradeweb's US government bond ADV was up 19.1% YoY to $139.9bn, while European government bond ADV was up 17.2% to $36.9bn, said the firm. Repo trading increased 16.3% last month to $1.27tn (£1tn), making July the second busiest month so far in 2023, according to figures from electronic trading platform Tradeweb. [Extracted from the article]

Julius Baer hires ex-CS Yüce as securities trader Private banking firm Julius Baer has hired Erhan Yüce, formerly of Credit Suisse, as a new securities trader. US and UK regulators fined UBS $387 million (£302m) for breaches related to UBS-owned Credit Suisse's "unsafe and unsound" risk management practices that caused losses when family office Archegos Capital Management collapsed in 2021, last month. [Extracted from the article]

The Bank of England has discussed minimum haircuts or reducing the lookback period for calculating margin on cleared repo to address problems in the UK debt market late last year. The Bank of England published on Monday the minutes of the latest Money Markets Committee meeting held on June 20, which discussed the UK repo market after the British mini-budget in September. [Extracted from the article]

Mumbai-based AMC Repo Clearing launched the service on Friday to focus on creating a market for short-term borrowing against corporate debt securities. Also, AMC Repo Clearings has established a Core Settlement Guarantee Fund primarily with contributions from issuers of corporate bonds to provide settlement guarantee in the repo market. Indian clearing house AMC Repo Clearing has launched a triparty repurchase agreement facility in corporate debt securities to support repurchase agreement financing. [Extracted from the article]

US derivatives regulator the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has proposed to remove initial margin collateral restrictions on money market funds transferring assets through securities finance transactions. CFTC has proposed to eliminate a provision disqualifying the securities issued by certain pooled investment funds, such as money market funds (MMFs), that transfer their assets through securities lending, securities borrowing, repurchase agreements (repo) and reverse repo from being used as eligible initial margin (IM) collateral. [Extracted from the article]

The European Banking Authority (EBA) says bank holdings of derivatives are set to increase further this year, extending last year's trend as firms look to hedge their interest rate risk. "Funding by repurchase agreements banks enter into may also be of relevance in banks' strategies in 2023 to substitute extraordinary central bank funding, and they are expected to grow by 8.1% in 2023", the report said. Bank derivative positions to increase 11% in 2023 - EBA. [Extracted from the article]

A majority of respondents to a new survey have said their clients are increasing their use of repo and want to execute more of their repo trades on electronic platforms in future. Another 29% of the sell-side respondents said their clients have not changed their position on repo while only 5% said their clients are trading less repo. [Extracted from the article]

A commissioner at the US futures regulator has said the proposed expansion of clearing into US cash Treasuries, including the huge repo market, should be carefully implemented to avoid a wider universe of instruments being caught by the regulation. Speaking at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) global markets advisory committee on Monday, commissioner Christy Goldsmith Romero said the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) proposal should adopt a tight definition of cash markets. The SEC proposed rule amendments in September 2022 requiring direct market users to clear eligible secondary market transactions, including repo trades, in US Treasury securities. [Extracted from the article]

Trade body the Investment Industry Association of Canada (IIAC) has recommended the application of risk mitigants such as repo haircuts in the Canadian repurchase agreement market. Trade body weighs haircuts in Canadian repo market - paper RBC Investor & Treasury Services announced this month it is rebranding as RBC Investor Services to cater to the Canadian market. [Extracted from the article]

In June, CIBC Capital Markets hired Michael Saunders, previously BNP Paribas' head of agency lending Americas, securities services, as its new executive director of global collateral finance. Fixed income platform BrokerTec has hired Sara Carter as an executive director and global head of repo. [Extracted from the article]

Tradeweb has said repo trading increased 18% last month, making June the busiest month so far in 2023. The fixed income trading platform said daily repo trading increased last month 18.2% compared to June last year to a total of $496.1bn (£388.7bn). [Extracted from the article]

Swap Connect is the first initiative to open up the onshore China swap market to offshore investors and traders, said a senior executive at D2 Legal Technology. Central banks in Hong Kong and China are discussing plans to grow Bond Connect through allowing investors to potentially trade repurchase agreement (repo) transactions on the platform. [Extracted from the article]

Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said that it will conduct the four-day auction despite overnight money market rates hardening above the repurchase agreement (repo) rate. India injects £6.8bn through variable rate repo auction India's central bank on Monday announced a four-day variable rate repo auction to inject liquidity into its domestic banking system. [Extracted from the article]

Clearstream launched in March a data-based solution named the Collateral Mapper to optimise collateral management with real-time data and analytics on collateral portfolios and equity capacities. A group of firms including Clearstream, NatWest and Standard Chartered is working with fintech Consort1 to make securities lending and repurchase agreements accessible to smaller firms such as government entities, fund managers and corporates. According to Consort1, if a bank were to fail, cash depositors' funds would be secured up to the value of collateral held with Clearstream as tri-party custody agent for the depositor. [Extracted from the article]

Mumbai-based SEBI has allowed mutual funds to invest in repo transactions in corporate debt securities such as commercial papers (CPs) and certificate of deposits (CDs). The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has said it will allow mutual funds to invest in repurchase agreement (repo) transactions on specific corporate debt securities, in a bid to boost the domestic corporate bond market. [Extracted from the article]

Tradeweb has reported an increase in repo trading activity as the US fixed income market continues to benefit from the elevated interest rate environment. In April, Tradeweb also reported a spike in repo trading activity with the market bolstering a high interest rate environment. [Extracted from the article]

Distributed ledger technology (DLT) is revolutionising repo trading and changing the underlying market structure, a senior executive at Broadridge has said. Broadridge launched its distributed ledger-based repo trading platform in June 2021, pledging to save repo trading firms millions. DLT revolutionising the repo trading market - Broadridge. [Extracted from the article]

Zurich-based SIX Group said on Thursday BME Clearing is now live on its CO:RE Repo Market platform, which offers trading and collateral management capabilities in a fully integrated value chain, according to the exchange. Spanish clearing house BME Clearing has gone live on the Swiss exchange group's repo platform amid increasing demand for Euro-based repurchase agreements. [Extracted from the article]

Broadridge has hired Baris Yildirim, formerly of Treasury Intelligence Solutions and FIS, to manage sales in Northern Europe. The addition of Yildirim to the European sales team emphasises the firm's commitment to deliver innovative solutions to clients worldwide and to revolutionise the trade lifecycle, said Broadridge. [Extracted from the article]

Proposed US investment adviser rules may harm derivatives market - ISDA The SEC's so-called "custody rule" is designed to safeguard client funds and securities from the registered investment adviser that executes trades or holds assets on the client's behalf. The International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) has warned proposed US rules covering custody and asset segregation by investment advisers may harm the derivatives markets. [Extracted from the article]

The People's Bank of China said on Monday it is continuing to inject funds into its domestic financial system via a medium-term lending facility (MLF) and reverse repos. The MLF tool helps commercial and policy banks maintain liquidity by allowing them to borrow from the central bank using securities as collateral, said the Chinese government. The Beijing-based central bank said it is keeping its benchmark lending rates unchanged for the ninth consecutive month in May, with the bank continuing to conduct seven-day reverse repos worth 2 billion yuan at an interest rate of 2%. [Extracted from the article]

Rising repo rates in Saudi Arabia may restrict investment in the manufacturing sector and slow growth in one of the world's fastest growing economies, a study has claimed. SAMA increased its repo rate by 25 basis points to 5.75% and its reverse repo rate by 25 basis points to 5.25%. [Extracted from the article]

Three quarters of uncleared US treasury repo trades have no haircuts, according to a pilot survey from a US research body. Washington-headquartered OFR estimates that 70% of hedge fund repo borrowing and 57% of hedge fund repo lending at zero haircut are netted, indicating that among these trades, netted packages play a large role in driving zero haircuts. State Street selected this month Eurex to process its first cleared repo trades outside the US, in what the German clearing house has described as "another milestone for Eurex's cleared repo markets". [Extracted from the article]

The People's Bank of China said on Monday it has injected more than £14bn of liquidity into its domestic financial system via a medium-term lending facility (MLF) and reverse repos. The MLF tool helps commercial and policy banks maintain liquidity by allowing them to borrow from the central bank using securities as collateral, said the Chinese government. [Extracted from the article]

The rise in demand for pass-through voting from investors and regulators is an example of the ongoing democratisation of investing, according to a new report by fintech Broadridge. The whitepaper "Pass-through Voting: Granting a voice to the investor community in the passive investment space" addresses how the growth in the investment funds space has increased the industry's interest in leveraging technology to support pass-through voting. Pass-through voting enables investors to influence how asset managers vote on underlying equities in a specific fund. [Extracted from the article]

Fintech giant Broadridge has seen the value of repo trades on its blockchain platform jump 40% in three months, as the repo market thrives in the higher interest rate environment. Broadridge launched its distributed ledger-based repo trading platform in June 2021, pledging to save repo trading firms millions. [Extracted from the article]

State Street has selected Eurex to process its first cleared repo trades outside the US, in what the German clearing house has described as "another milestone for Eurex's cleared repo markets". The US financial services giant has joined Eurex through its German subsidiary, State Street Bank International (SSBI), which completed the cleared repo trades with the Frankfurt-based clearing house. [Extracted from the article]