The Futures Industry Association and Markit’s global electronic give-up agreement system(EGUS) has achieved key operational efficiency milestones since its launch in February 2007.
In six months, EGUS has cut the average time it takes to execute give-up agreements from 39 days to just two days.
EGUS is an electronic platform that allows executing brokers, clearing brokers and their customers to create, amend, review and execute give-up agreements online. A give-up agreement occurs when a futures market participant uses one broker to execute a trade and another to clear it, thus requiring the executing broker to “give up” the trade to the clearing broker. The electronic platform is provided by Markit.
“By streamlining the give-up execution process through the use of technology, we have been able to improve trading relationships in the futures and options marketplace and have automated a once paper-intensive process,” says Jeff Gooch, Head of Trade Processing and Valuations at Markit.