What’s next for Treasury clearing? Cleared buy-side tri-party enhancements at DTCC

DTCC’s Fixed Income Clearing Corporation’s (FICC’s) Laura Klimpel details some of the exciting innovations set to improve margin efficiency for the buy side, as well as further streamline done-away activity with tri-party repo enhancements to FICC’s sponsored service and agent clearing service

Laura Klimpel, FICC

The US Treasury clearing mandate – which aims to allow market participants to reduce costs, increase operational efficiency and manage risks more effectively – is driving the move towards greater central clearing. While much of the attention so far has been on clearing Treasury cash transactions, which will begin on December 31, 2026, the required central clearing of Treasury repo transactions is not far behind, starting on June 30, 2027.

FICC completed all necessary development work ahead of the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC’s) March 31, 2025 deadline for expanded Treasury clearing, successfully launching the enhanced Agent Clearing Service (ACS), as well as new capabilities to separate house and customer activity, and margin segregation for customers that elect to post margin to FICC.

To further support the transition to expanded central clearing, FICC focused on solving some of the remaining key policy issues identified by the markets through launching additional service enhancements and innovations. The new Collateral-in-Lieu (CIL) service, under its Sponsored General Collateral (GC) offering, and the ACS Tri-party service, were both recently approved by the SEC as enhancements to FICC’s buy-side access models and services, and FICC anticipates increased adoption in the coming months as the industry continues to ramp up for full implementation of the SEC’s clearing requirements.

Sponsored General Collateral’s Collateral-in-Lieu

FICC officially launched the new CIL service in late December 2025, with BNY Securities Finance and Federated Hermes successfully executing the first repo trade on the new solution.

This new enhancement, offered under FICC’s GC service, delivers significant margin and capital efficiencies and will accelerate the market’s transition to central clearing. The service maintains the haircut typically posted by dealers to money-market funds and other cash investors in tri-party, while implementing a central counterparty (CCP) lien that is applied ‘in lieu’ of both a sponsor guaranty and margin posting to the CCP, in most circumstances. This approach eliminates double-margining for some sponsored members and streamlines operational processes for market participants, leveraging the benefits of tri-party.

The sponsored service has proven to be a popular buy-side clearing solution, with more than $2.4 trillion in volume now flowing through the service on a typical day. The enhancement of the CIL service is designed to build on that success, allowing sponsoring members and their sponsored member customers to maximise many of their existing legal agreements and operational processes for sponsored repo, but take the margin and capital efficiencies of the product to the next level.

The service leverages BNY’s Global Collateral Platform for collateral management and settlement, supporting both done-away and done-with trade execution styles.

Agent Clearing Service Tri-party

In January, FICC received SEC approval to launch a new ACS Tri-party enhancement, a further expansion of the firm’s tri-party repo offerings.

With this regulatory approval, FICC can now offer cleared tri-party repo capabilities to agent clearing members and their executing firm customers. Specifically, FICC’s agent clearing members can submit eligible tri-party repo transactions for clearing, executed between their executing firm customers and either the agent clearing member itself (done-with), or another Government Securities Division netting member or client (done-away).

Learn more

US Treasuries clearing: a new era 

The latest insights on access, collateral and risk

The ACS Tri-party service was developed to facilitate greater access to central clearing, ultimately enabling increased capacity and liquidity in the market. At the same time, the service provides unique benefits to agent clearing members, including the potential for enhanced margin efficiency, reduced capital requirements and balance sheet relief.

Like the CIL service, the ACS Tri-party enhancement also leverages BNY’s tri-party infrastructure for collateral management and settlement, supporting done-away and done-with trade-execution styles.

DTCC's infrastructure is ready

The US Treasury clearing rules represent one of the most significant market structure shifts in decades, and the industry’s strong engagement with FICC underscores its confidence in the benefits of DTCC's offerings, access models and a centrally cleared marketplace. 

DTCC's infrastructure is ready and the path to compliance is clear: these additional developments and enhancements will help propel the industry towards compliance with mandatory clearing in 2026 and beyond.

Sponsored content