Buy-side CDS clearing ‘not really happening’

In June 2009, major dealers made a commitment to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to give dealer clients access to clearing for credit default swaps (CDS) in the US by December last year. The December 15 deadline was met by both the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) Group and Ice Trust, the credit derivatives clearing arm of the Atlanta-based Intercontinental Exchange. Both firms are vying to clear CDSs in the US. What was done in December for CDS was manual and not something that could be operationally sustained on a day-to-day basis However, work to make central clearing an operational success is still far from complete, suggest market participants. “What was done in December for CDSs was manual and not something that could be operationally sustained on a day-to-day basis,” says one source close to the matter.