Streetwise Professor

Three weeks ago I wrote about, and criticized, LSE CEO Xavier Rolet’s statement that “We can cross margin our over-the-counter clearing with their listed derivatives without merging the clearinghouses, and without comingling the risk-management framework. [Emphasis added.]”  Then three days ago I read Philip Stafford’s article in the FT stating “Deutsche Börse and LSE plan to link clearing houses“:

The two sides are working on common risk management and default frameworks for their market utilities, which risk manage billions of dollars of derivatives trades on the market every day. [Emphasis added.]

The exchanges’ long-term aim is for each customer to become a member of both the LSE-controlled LCH and Deutsche Börse’s Eurex clearing houses. The customers, which are typically banks, would agree to hand over their trading data in return for better risk management of their derivatives, according to two people familiar with the talks.

The planned London-based holding company would instruct the two clearing houses on how to proceed with a default after consultations with central banks, one of the people said. The two sides are discussing their plans with their regulators and customers, one person said.

So how do you have a “common risk management framework” without “commingling the risk-management framework”? Is there some fine verbal distinction I am missing? Or perhaps this is like Schrödinger’s CCP, in a state of quantum superposition, both commingled and uncommingled until someone opens the box.

In my post, I mentioned default management as one reason to integrate the CCPs:

Another part of the “risk management framework” is the management of defaulted positions. Separate management of the risk of components of a defaulted portfolio is highly inefficient. Indeed, part of the justification of portfolio margining is that the combined position is less risky, and that some components effectively hedge other components. Managing the risks of the components separately in the event of a default sacrifices these self-hedging features, and increases the amount of trading necessary to manage the risk of the defaulted position. Since this trading may be necessary during periods of low liquidity, economizing on the amount of trading is very beneficial.

Apparently the recent experience with the default of Maple Bank brought home the benefits of such integration:

One person familiar with the talks highlighted problems created by February’s default of Frankfurt-based bank Maple, which was a member of both exchanges’ clearing houses.

“Right now what you have is a blind process — the liquidation of positions is conducted without co-ordination,” the person said. “Therefore it has a negative price impact in the market as you have two guys running out liquidating positions in the name.”

Huh. Go figure.

“Commingling” makes sense. Coordination is vital, both in daily operations (e.g., setting margins and monitoring to reduce the risk of default) and in extremis (during a default).

Perhaps Rolet was trying to deceive regulators who are so obsessed with too big to fail (sorry, both Eurex and LCH are TBTF already!) and who are blind to the benefits of coordination. If the regulators need to be deceived thus, we are doomed, because then it would be clear they have no clue about the real issues.

One wonders if they will recognize coordination and commingling even after they look in the box. Apparently Rolet thinks not. If they do, Xavier will have a lot of ‘splainin’ to do.