Two of the world's biggest market infrastructure companies are joining forces to help banks track down enough cash to underpin their derivatives trades, spurred by new regulation that aims to make safe a traditionally risky area of business. Brussels-based Euroclear and the Depository Trust & Clearing Corp (DTCC) of New York have agreed to build a new platform to combine available collateral into a single pool. "It's too early to say when the launch will be. We are scoping it in detail," said Saheed Awan, head of global collateral services at Euroclear. The derivatives market lay at the heart of the 2007-09 financial crisis, creating uncertainty when large users like Lehman Brothers bank and insurer AIG got into trouble. New rules are being phased in this year seeking to safeguard the $640 trillion market for financial derivatives like interest rate and credit default swaps. As a result banks will have to find more collateral, such as cash and government bonds, to set against
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