Collateral crunch: four FX settlement fails, and how to fix them

The panel

Vikash Rughani, Head of product design, OSTTRA

Jennifer Chisholm, Senior business program manager, treasury, FX risk management, Microsoft

Moderator: Phil Harding, Global head of commercial content, Risk.net

Foreign exchange markets are facing mounting liquidity pressure as trading hours extend, settlement cycles compress and funding becomes increasingly intraday. Yet many of the stresses that cause ‘collateral crunches’ originate not in balance sheets or margin models, but in post-trade processes that delay certainty, trap capital and amplify risk.

This Risk.net webinar examines four post-trade failures that are exacerbating liquidity and collateral stress in FX markets – and explores what practical fixes look like in an environment edging towards T+1 and near-continuous trading. The discussion reveals how settlement design, workflow fragmentation and operational blind spots can create avoidable funding strain – and what can be improved now.

With intraday liquidity under closer scrutiny and funding costs increasingly sensitive to operational frictions, firms that address these issues stand to unlock trapped capital, reduce balance sheet strain and strengthen resilience.

Key discussion points:

• How inflexible settlement cycles lock up cash and collateral at critical moments
• Why delays in confirmation and matching cascade into margin and intraday liquidity stress
• How bilateral processes trap capital that could be netted, compressed or settled versus payment
• Why reactive operations identify settlement breaks too late – and how predictive analytics can help

Sponsored content