Clearstream and the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) have entered in exclusive negotiations to jointly develop a new collateral management (CM) offering for the Australian market.
Jeffrey Tessler, CEO Clearstream, said: “Our collateral management service addresses the major industry concern to consolidate and streamline collateral management activities. All users will immediately benefit from future system enhancements in line with market requirements and regulatory demand.”
Clearstream is the only CM services provider in a position to manage collateral across time zones and regions while the assets stay in the respective domestic market under local legislation – a regulatory requirement in many countries. Last month, Brazil became the first market to go live with Clearstream's real-time CM outsourcing service.
Peter Hiom, Deputy CEO of ASX, said: “ASX is working to expand the range of its post-trade services in the Australian market to meet the rapidly changing needs of financial market participants. The large amount of collateral held in ASX depositories presents an opportunity for us to deliver a domestically operated, centralised and fully automated collateral management service.”
The move will allow ASX customers to directly use securities held in Austraclear (central securities depository) and Chess (the settlement system for equities trades) to manage their exposures and facilitate the funding of their market activity.
