Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. (NYSE: ICE) announced plans Monday to introduce a clearing service for US Treasury securities and repurchase agreements, leveraging its experience in central clearing and fixed-income markets.

ICE Wants to Enhance Treasury Market Transparency

The move comes in response to the US Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) recent mandate to expand clearing in the Treasury securities market. ICE aims to offer this new service using its existing clearing house, ICE Clear Credit.

"We believe ICE Clear Credit is strategically positioned to offer Treasury clearing services that will promote competition and help facilitate the SEC's policy objective of bringing increased transparency and standardized risk management to the Treasury securities market,” said Stan Ivanov, the President of ICE Clear Credit.

The new Treasury clearing service will operate independently of ICE's current credit default swap (CDS) clearing service, with its own rulebook and financial resources.

ICE Clear Credit, established in 2009 during the financial crisis, has become a leading global clearing house for credit derivatives. It currently offers clearing for over 650 Single Name and Index CDS instruments. It has cleared approximately $200 trillion in two-sided notional amounts, with open interest exceeding $1.75 trillion.

"As we look to add Treasury clearing to the breadth of services we offer for fixed income markets, we will leverage the successful playbook we developed in the past to offer an industry-trusted clearing solution,” added Chris Edmonds, the President of ICE's Fixed Income and Data Services, commented.

As an SEC-registered Securities Clearing Agency and a designated systemically important financial market utility, ICE Clear Credit brings regulatory experience to this new venture. The company aims to apply its expertise in navigating regulatory requirements to the Treasury clearing service.

ICE operates across a wide range of markets, as exemplified by its collaboration with the cryptocurrency firm Blockstream at the end of last year, enabling crypto options data to be introduced.

A month ago, ICE agreed to pay a $10 million penalty to resolve charges that nine of its wholly-owned subsidiaries, including the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), failed to promptly notify the SEC about a cyber intrusion, as required by Regulation Systems Compliance and Integrity.