Growing use of ‘carte blanche’ keeps FCMs ‘awake at night’

Executing brokers want to speed up trade processing, but practice is deemed risky by clearers

For executing brokers, post-trade confirmations increasingly seem like more trouble than they’re worth.

In an attempt to speed up trade processing, many are embracing a practice known as ‘carte blanche’, where give-up trades are accepted for clearing without first confirming the details with clients. Ditching the extra checks, they argue, will prevent a repeat of 2020’s Covid-driven back-office meltdown, when a huge spike in volumes led to operational chaos in the futures markets.

But futures