The Board of Trade Clearing Corporation has agreed a deal to act as the clearing house for the new US futures exchange planned by Swiss-German derivatives exchange Eurex.
The non-exclusive arrangement permits the Clearing Corporation to continue its business arrangements with other exchanges and derivatives marketplaces.
The BOTCC is looking for additional sources of revenue after the Chicago Board of Trade announced plans to shift its clearing business to the neighbouring Mercantile Exchange in retaliation over a proposed BOTCC/Eurex alliance. The CBOT had already fallen out with Eurex over proposals to dump the a/c/e electronic trading platform in favour of the Liffe Connect system from Euronext.
Eurex CEO Rudolf Ferscha says: "For our new US products we will use the a/c/e platform, on which already 80 percent of all US bond futures are traded. Our customers will be able to continue to use exactly the same infrastructure they are using now."
Importantly the deal enables the transfer of open CBOT positions to the new clearing and exchange infrastructure, ensuring a seamless transition for US traders already dealing over a/c/e.
The agreement was foreshadowed by an earlier announcement that Deutsche Borse was to increase its share of profits from Eurex to 85% from 80% after signing a new ten-year co-operation pact with SWX Swiss Exchange. The change in stake reflects the increased revenues that Eurex is expected to generate from its new US business.