ICE plans to divorce LCH Clearnet within 12 months
Intercontinental Exchange (ICE)’s confirmed plans to
relinquish ties with LCH Clearnet (LCH-C) within one year from 12 July has been
met with some concern from ICE member firms.
The dissolution of futures clearing was expected following
the Atlanta exchange’s purchase of New York Board of Trade (Nybot) and its
clearinghouse in late 2006, but up until now the fate of the OTC business was
unclear for LCH-C.
The LCH-C services will be replaced by ICE's clearing house,
ICE Clear Europe, while Nybot will renamed ICE Futures US.
On the ETD side, while the change was expected, some ICE
Futures member firms have expressed concerns over the method, time-period and
associated risk of switching positions and open interest when the clearing
migration occurs.
“In principle, from an IT point of view, the process is
simple, but this happens...