MarkitSERV Announces Connection To NASDAQ OMX For FX Clearing

Post-trade processing provider MarkitSERV  today announced that it has connected to NASDAQ OMX, in order to deliver foreign exchange (FX) trades for clearing.

Providing clearing connectivity to NASDAQ OMX, quantifies MarkitSERV as the first middleware provider to deliver FX trades to the firm which provides systems to assist with financial transactions performed on exchanges, mainly located in the Nordic and Eastern European regions.

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The connectivity is intended to increase the ability to serve the global FX industry’s growing need to connect to multiple clearinghouses (CCPs) and trade reporting facilities.

MarkitSERV, whose Dodd-Frank compliant solution emerged on March 11 this year, two weeks ago confirmed that 600,000 trades had been sent for clearing via the company’s processing system, first connected to NASDAQ OMX for clearing interest rate swaps in 2012.

In addition to this, MarkitSERV has to date processed approximately 100,000 FX non-deliverable forward (NDF) submissions, and its gateway has been used for the vast majority of the $1+ trillion in notional value of cleared NDF trades.

Making a corporate statement on behalf of NASDAQ OMX, Magnus Billing, Senior Vice President of Nordic Fixed Income said: “As a consequence of recent regulation, the FX landscape is changing.”

He further explained the corporate direction borne out by regulatory changes in that: “we are approaching FX with a broad offering of clearable products, in order to satisfy all of the drivers our members have to clear FX. MarkitSERV will be a vital element in helping NASDAQ OMX’s members, to satisfy their regulatory requirements in clearing FX, and to provide the tools to navigate the new regulatory environment.”

Keith Tippell, Director and Co-Head of FX at MarkitSERV, concluded that: “We are delighted to extend our relationship with NASDAQ OMX to FX clearing. We share a mutual commitment to delivering efficient solutions for managing risk and meeting regulatory requirements. We look forward to working with NASDAQ OMX and to applying our deep experience in managing clearing workflows to support FX clearing in the Nordic region.”