ICE Clear Europe is a recognised clearing house under section 288 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 supervised by the Bank of England. ICE Clear Europe provides clearing services for futures and options contracts traded on ICE Futures Europe, ICE Endex, and ICE Futures U.S. Energy Division. ICE Clear Europe also received the settlement finality designation (SFD) by the FSA under the Financial Markets and Insolvency (Settlement Finality) Regulations 1999, which enhances the systemic risk protection provided to clearing members in the event of a clearing counterparty default. Under SFD, payment instructions can be protected from EU administrators or liquidators of insolvent firms. Designation means that ICE Clear Europe's system is now designated under the EU's Settlement Finality Directive. The Clearing House is also: (i) recognised as an inter-bank payment system under the Banking Act 2009 and regulated by the Bank of England, and (ii) designated as a Derivatives Clearing Organisation by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
The clearing house also provides clearing services for European credit default swaps (CDS) index contracts. In addition to Bank of England oversight, ICE Clear Europe's CDS clearing services operate as an SEC Securities Clearing Agency (SCA) under the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Regulatory Disclosures
Financial Resources
The following details the size and composition of the financial resource package available in the event of an ICE Clear Europe clearing participant default.
- ICE Clear Europe's current original margin on deposit* is:
- Futures and Options: $41,013,486,741
- CDS initial margin: $6,762,971,561 - In the event of a default, only the margin of the defaulting clearing participant and defaulting customer (if applicable, and subject to segregation laws) may be used for default management.
- In the event the resources of a defaulting clearing participant are insufficient to cure the default, the below financial resources are available to ICE Clear Europe.
FUTURES AND OPTIONS GUARANTY FUND REQUIREMENT** | |
ICE Clear Europe (Designated Corporate) Initial Contribution | $100,000,000 |
Clearing Participant Required Guaranty Fund Contributions | $1,550,000,000 |
Minimum Total Assets Available | $1,650,000,000 |
CDS GUARANTY FUND REQUIREMENT** | |
ICE Clear Europe (Designated Corporate) Contributions | $ 50,000,000 |
Clearing Participant Required Guaranty Fund Contributions | $ 1,137,174,943 |
Minimum Total Assets Available | $1,187,174,943 |
- ICE Clear Europe's financial resources additionally include assessment powers as detailed in ICE Clear Europe Rule 909(a) and 910(a).
- All figures above are current as of 30 September 2016.
- All figures are expressed in U.S. Dollars for comparison purposes.
* The Futures & Options and CDS Original Margin amounts represent the U.S. Dollar value of Original Margin on deposit, including excess collateral, after any applicable haircuts.
** The values contained in the Futures & Options and CDS Guaranty Fund Requirements tables represent the U.S. Dollar requirements and do not include any excess collateral posted.