European Central Counterparty, a subsidiary of The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation, is expected to launch on August 15, 2008 with 15 firms having gained approval as clearing participants, including the nine founding members of Turquoise and six other firms.
The nine Turquoise founding firms are Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, Citi, UBS, BNP Paribas and Societe Generale. The other participants of European Central Counterparty (EuroCCP) are ABN Amro, Barclays Capital, Credit Agricole Cheuvreux, Instinet, KAS Bank and Lehman Brothers.
Of the 15 firms, six will be general clearing participants who will be able to clear and settle trades for about 35 trading firms who are not participants of EuroCCP. The others are individual clearing participants who only clear and settle trades they execute.
Diana Chan, CEO of EuroCCP, said: The upcoming launch with these 15 firms marks a key milestone in the development of EuroCCP. They make up a significant portion of the equity trading community in Europe. We are also continuing to work with a number of other firms as they complete the requirements for participation, and we expect to announce additional individual and general clearing participants in the coming weeks.