Almost 30% of sell-side institutions expected to offer Treasury clearing services through their Prime Brokerage, Agency Clearing and Futures Commission Merchant business areas
New York/London/Hong Kong/Singapore/Sydney, June 4, 2024 — DTCC, the premier post-trade market infrastructure for the global financial services industry, today announced that daily Treasury volumes through its Fixed Income Clearing Corporation (FICC) are expected to rise by over US$4 Trillion once the SEC’s expanded U.S. Treasury clearing rules take effect, according to new industry feedback.
The new estimate, up from the original estimate of approximately US$1.63 Trillion in September 2023, was recently determined based upon a survey completed by 83 sell-side institutions following the final SEC’s U.S. Treasury clearing rule.
“Given the SEC’s rules around mandatory central clearing are now final and the industry’s understanding of their impact is becoming clearer, it is not surprising to us to see the incremental volume estimates hardening around US$4 Trillion daily,” stated Brian Steele, DTCC Managing Director, President, Clearing & Securities Services. “While expanding Treasury clearing will be an important structural change for all Treasury market participants, we view it as a logical expansion of the services we provide and consistent with FICC’s mission. We currently process roughly US$7 Trillion in Treasury activity every day and our buy-side volumes in the Sponsored Service are up over 70% year-over-year. We expect these growth trends to steadily continue as we move toward go-live for the expanded Treasury Clearing requirement.”
One area that continues to be discussed across the industry as a result of the new SEC rules is the treatment of “done-away” activity, which is a type of U.S. Treasury activity executed by a client with one counterparty but cleared by a firm different from the executing counterparty. Almost 30% of sell-side institutions responded in the survey that they plan to facilitate cleared U.S. Treasury activity out of either their Prime Brokerage, Agency Clearing or Futures Commission Merchant business lines, all of which traditionally offer “done-away” execution as part of their core client clearing services.
“There has been much discussion around done-away activity in connection with Treasury Clearing, with many buy-side firms concerned that client clearing services would only be offered by sell-side firms’ repo desk businesses, without done-away capabilities,” stated Laura Klimpel, Managing Director, Head of DTCC’s Fixed Income and Financing Solutions. “What we are seeing now from the survey data is an emerging sell-side trend to address this challenge, with firms now looking to also leverage their Prime Brokerage, Agency Clearing and FCM businesses to clear clients’ Treasury transactions.”
In support of the expanded Treasury clearing rules, DTCC will continue to work closely with market participants across the industry, as well as organizations like SIFMA, to ensure appropriate access to central clearing for all market participant segments and facilitate a streamlined implementation.
“SIFMA continues to work with market participants---both buy and sell side---to identify and resolve issues and challenges in connection with ‘done away’ clearing,” stated Rob Toomey, Managing Director and Associate General Counsel and Head of SIFMA’s Capital Markets Group. “We expect these efforts to feed into our overall clearing documentation efforts and to allow market participants to choose the right approach for their business.”
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About DTCC
With over 50 years of experience, DTCC is the premier post-trade market infrastructure for the global financial services industry. From 20 locations around the world, DTCC, through its subsidiaries, automates, centralizes, and standardizes the processing of financial transactions, mitigating risk, increasing transparency, enhancing performance and driving efficiency for thousands of broker/dealers, custodian banks and asset managers. Industry owned and governed, the firm innovates purposefully, simplifying the complexities of clearing, settlement, asset servicing, transaction processing, trade reporting and data services across asset classes, bringing enhanced resilience and soundness to existing financial markets while advancing the digital asset ecosystem. In 2023, DTCC’s subsidiaries processed securities transactions valued at U.S. $3 quadrillion and its depository subsidiary provided custody and asset servicing for securities issues from over 150 countries and territories valued at U.S. $85 trillion. DTCC’s Global Trade Repository service, through locally registered, licensed, or approved trade repositories, processes more than 20 billion messages annually. To learn more, please visit us at www.dtcc.com or connect with us on LinkedIn, X, YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram.