DTCC and CME Group have received regulatory approval to extend their US Treasury cross‑margining arrangement to end‑user clients, marking the first time the long‑running programme will be available beyond clearing members’ proprietary accounts.
The SEC and CFTC have cleared the expansion, which will allow dually registered broker‑dealers and futures commission merchants that are members of both DTCC’s Fixed Income Clearing Corporation and CME to offer cross‑margining benefits to clients from 30 April.
Frank La Salla, DTCC president and chief executive, said the move comes as centrally cleared Treasury activity accelerates.
“The importance of efficient cross‑margining opportunities across U.S. Treasury securities and futures activity is critical as centrally cleared US Treasury activity continues to grow,” he said. “Our current cross‑margining arrangement with CME Group has a proven track record of creating an average of $1bn across both clearing houses in risk offsets every day, and we expect the end‑user cross margin effort will lead to additional offsets for the industry.”
Terry Duffy, CME Group chairman and chief executive, said the timing aligns with the SEC’s new clearing mandates.
“With the SEC’s central clearing mandates now taking effect, cross‑margining is essential — not only for operational efficiency, but to help end users manage the real costs of compliance,” he said. “Decades of collaboration between our two organizations and regulators have laid the groundwork, and now our partnership will deliver additional margin and capital efficiencies across the marketplace.”
The extension will allow clients to offset eligible US Treasury cash positions cleared at FICC with interest rate futures cleared at CME when exposures align, reducing margin requirements and freeing capital. DTCC said the existing house‑account arrangement generates around $1bn in daily risk offsets across the two clearing houses.
Cross‑margining between CME and FICC has been available to common clearing members since 2004, with enhancements introduced in 2024. The latest phase will allow clearing members to designate client cross‑margin accounts at FICC, with CME enabling futures to be directed into those accounts throughout the trading day.
