London-based clearinghouse LCH has announced record volumes across multiple asset classes for 2017, driven by regulatory change, new products and client wins.
SwapClear, LCH’s interest rate derivatives clearing service processed over $873 trillion in notional volumes, with member and client flow increasing 31% year-on-year. It also saw over $3.1 trillion of inflation swaps cleared, meanwhile compression volumes rose 58% from 2016 to over $608 trillion.
LCH’s RepoClear service cleared $175 trillion over the course of the year, a 25% increase on 2016, while EquityClear processed over 1 billion trades and ForexClear processed more than $11 trillion in notional. The CDSClear service recorded $1.1 trillion in notional processed across its CDS index and single-names offering.
“We’ve seen significant growth in volumes across multiple asset classes driven by new customers as well as additional flow from existing customers, said Daniel Maguire, chief executive of LCH Group.
Maguire added the world’s largest clearing house will commit to its open access policy, despite the exemptions of Eurex, ICE Futures Europe, LME and now Nasdaq Stockholm from the MiFID II open access regime.
“The Group is committed to its Open Access approach, working in partnership with our customers to promote greater choice and innovation, reducing risk and maximising capital and operational efficiencies”, he said.
For 2018, LCH plans to expand the SwapClear offering through the introduction of non-deliverable interest rate swaps in Chinese Yuan, Korean Won and Indian Rupee.
It is also planning to extend its portfolio margining solution, LCH Spider, to allow long-term interest rate futures to be offset with eligible swaps.
“In 2018, we look forward to continuing to partner with our customers, as we look to add additional products and services to our existing wide range spanning the cleared and increasingly the non-cleared market,” added Maguire.