NYCC to offer CLS services

Two firms have signed up for the new continuous-linked settlement (CLS) service of the New York Clearing Corp (NYCC), the clearing house for the exchange markets of the New York Board of Trade (Nybot), reports RiskNews ' sister publication Trading Technology Week .

The NYCC will use JPMorgan Treasury Services, a unit of JP Morgan Chase, to provide the CLS service, said George Haase, president of the NYCC. The agreement will allow the NYCC to use CLS services via JPMorgan Access - JP Morgan’s web-based, electronic banking platform. Representatives of JPMorgan Treasury Services were unavailable for comment.

Two more firms may also be ready for CLS by the end of the month, Haase said, and the goal is to sign up from 12 to 15 NYCC member firms by the end of the year. The move to CLS connectivity will require changes to back office and payment systems as well as revised documentation - a process that can take months, Haase said.

But the benefit to Nybot members will be a streamlining of the settlement of their quarterly foreign currency futures contracts, which can be "sometimes difficult, manually intensive and prone to delays", according to Haase. The NYCC settles approximately $7 billion to $10 billion in 10 currencies, four times per year.