BBVA is a leading Spanish bank offering individual and corporate customers the most complete range of financial and non-financial products and services. BBVA also has a leading franchise in Latin America and it is one of the 15 largest US commercial banks. BBVA employs 107,000 people in over 30 countries around the world; it has more than 47 million customers and 900,000 shareholders.

Miguel Gonzalez Sardinero, global head of interest rates at BBVA explained: "We are committed to contributing to the stability and transparency of the financial system. By joining LCH.Clearnet's SwapClear service, with its unequalled reputation for clearing IRS, BBVA will be able to reduce counterparty risk and benefit from the advantages that central clearing brings.

This move will give BBVA access to the best prices to hedge and manage its large and complex IRS portfolio, which is especially important in the current financial environment, where participants are increasingly concerned about managing risk, and where the market expects to see different prices depending on the quality of the counterparty."

Michael Davie, CEO, SwapClear said: "SwapClear's growing membership increases standardisation and transparency in the global IRS market and indicates that the advantages of clearing for OTC markets are being recognised. We are delighted that BBVA has started clearing its IRS business and is able to benefit from SwapClear's market-leading service ahead of the forthcoming regulatory changes."

Established more than 11 years ago, SwapClear is the only truly global clearing service for IRS. Since launch in 1999, it has cleared over 1.5 million OTC IRS trades. SwapClear currently has 56 clearing members. The 950,000 trades in SwapClear have an aggregate notional principal amount of over $295 trillion, with a further $41.5 trillion of cleared transactions removed through multilateral trade compression. It is the only OTC clearing service to have successfullyy handled a significant OTC default, when it resolved Lehman Brothers' $9 trillion IRS default in 2008. In that instance, SwapClear's default management process ensured that more than 66,000 trades in 5 currencies were hedged and auctioned to other clearing members. SwapClear's process resulted in no loss to any market participants.

In June 2010, following extensive industry consultation, LCH.Clearnet became the first derivatives clearing house in the world to use overnight index swap (OIS) rate curves to discount IRS. This important step not only ensured the highest standards of risk management within a CCP; it has also increased certainty and transparency in the interest rate swap market more generally. This type of industry thought leadership was recognised by Risk Magazine in naming LCH.Clearnet 2011 Clearing House of the Year in its Risk Awards.