European Multilateral Clearing Facility (EMCF), Europe's largest cash equities Central Counterparty (CCP), today announces it will extend its range of services and products as well as its clients and trading venues.
In addition to EMCF's existing CCP services for cash equities in 19 European markets through 9 Multilateral Trading Facilities (MTF) and exchanges, EMCF will:
- Provide clearing and settlement services for trades that have been executed on a bilateral basis, i.e. Over the Counter (OTC) transactions, and
- Provide clearing and settlement services to Citi's CATS trading system for bi-lateral trades; widely known as "cats-os" and
- Broaden its range of financial instruments to include structured products.
'We are delighted to take the next step in creating a broader base for EMCF by extending our clearing service offering to OTC trades and a whole new product range. Adding the transactions from Citi's CATS to the current flows being cleared by EMCF will positively contribute to EMCF and it will provide opportunities for further consolidation to our clients.' said Jan Booij CEO of EMCF.
'Citi Automated Trading Services (CATS) provides OTC bi-lateral trading for a significant number of banksand brokers primarily in the structured products market. Chuffy Hunter, Head of CATS explained he is focused on implementing multiple new CATS features in 2011, firstly to reduce counterparty and operational risks, and secondly to increase the transparency of the quote and trade process. The integration of the EMCF CCP is a very positive step in the first of these two areas - offering clients a lower risk clearing solution.' The next step 'transparency' will also highlight these CCP trades in conjunction with their associated quotes.