Central Counterparties and Liquidity Provision in Cash Markets

This paper investigates increased liquidity provision by market makers resulting from their ability to reduce balance sheet encumbrance through the use of central counterparties (CCPs). The introduction of the Basel III leverage rule constitutes a shock to market makers’ balance sheets and thus affects their capacity to intermediate trades. Using trade-by-trade data from sovereign bond markets, we show that liquidity provision by CCP members decreased to a lesser extent following the rule change. We attribute these findings to balance sheet reductions due to the netting enabled by CCPs, thereby highlighting their importance in cash markets.

Do central counterparties reduce counterparty and liquidity risk? Empirical results

A central counterparty (CCP) interposes itself between buyers and sellers of financial contracts to extinguish their bilateral exposures. Therefore, central clearing and settlement through a CCP should affect how financial institutions engage in financial markets. Though, financial institutions’ interactions are difficult to observe and analyze. Based on a unique transactional dataset corresponding to the Colombian peso non-delivery forward market, this article compares—for the first time—networks of transactions agreed to be cleared and settled by the CCP with those to be cleared and settled bilaterally. Networks to be centrally cleared and settled show significantly higher connectivity and lower distances among financial institutions. This suggests that agreeing on central clearing and settlement reduces liquidity risk. After CCP interposition, exposure networks show significantly lower connectivity and higher distances, consistent with a reduction of counterparty risk. Consequently, evidence shows CCPs induce a change of behavior in financial institutions that emerges as two distinctive economic structures for the same market, which corresponds to CCP’s intended reduction of liquidity and counterparty risks.

Clearinghouses Versus Central Counterparties From Margin Calculation Point Of View

Clearinghouses and central counterparties (CCPs) have a notable role in financial markets, namely facilitating securities trading and derivative transactions on exchanges and over-the-counter markets. They have to clear the transactions and carry out their settlements to decrease costs and settlement risk. To efficiently carry out this activity, they need to collect adequate collateral from the trading parties as guarantees. Two main elements of these guarantees are the margin requirement and default fund contribution. Our paper focuses on the margin calculations and emphasizes their notable difference in the case of clearinghouses and CCPs. Our main result is that clearinghouses’ margin requirement is better from a procyclicality point of view; however, CCP margining is more prudent based on our results.

Central Counterparties are Too Big for the European Securities and Markets Authority (Alone): Constructive Critique of the 2019 CCP Supervision Regulation

Once seen as the solution to the systemic risk of over-the-counter derivatives, central counterparties (CCPs) have become a source of concern for the financial stability of the European Union (EU). Distress of a single CCP might be transferred to clearing members and others CCPs, thereby endangering EU monetary and fiscal stability. However, the European Market Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR) has left fiscal responsibility as well as day-to-day supervision of EU-based CCPs (EU-CCPs) at the national level, albeit cross-border colleges of authorities can overturn key decisions of national supervisors. The Commission concluded that these supervisory arrangements needed to be reformed because they hamper the development of a single coherent EU approach to CCP supervision. Although the Commission had proposed to centralise EU-CCP supervision in the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), the final 2019 CCP Supervision Regulation seeks to improve EMIR’s ineffective collegial framework by establishing an internal CCP Supervisory Committee within ESMA. Nevertheless, the continuing lack of loss mutualisation would keep on hindering the development of a single approach to EU-CCP supervision. Moreover, the new regulation adds another layer of complexity to the EMIR framework and clashes with the European monetary constitution. If an agreement on loss mutualisation was reached, EU-CCP supervision should be centralised in two EU bodies along objective lines: while the European Central Bank should be tasked with EU-CCP prudential supervision, ESMA should be responsible for EU-CCP conduct of business supervision. This framework would improve EU-CCP supervision and fit in with the current EU governance at once.

How is it Done? : Comparison between the Margin Calculation Methodology of Central Counterparties and Clearinghouses

Clearinghouses and central counterparties have become the backbone of financial markets by stepping between trades, facilitating securities trading, and derivative transactions on exchanges and overthe-counter markets. In the literature and in practice, too, the notion of clearinghouse and central counterparty are used as synonyms, but there is still a slight difference that highlights their distinction. This paper focuses on the margin calculation methodology of these institutions and emphasizes the contrast between the two. Results show that although capturing the same risks, clearinghouses’ margin requirement is better from a procyclicality and cash flow management point of view; however, central counterparties margining is more prudent based on our results.