The Commodity Futures Trading Commission approved a limited exemptive order enabling Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and the Fixed Income Clearing Corporation to make their existing cross-margining arrangement available to certain customers, subject to safeguards. The order permits joint clearing members of CME and FICC that are dually registered as broker-dealers with the Securities and Exchange Commission and as futures commission merchants with the CFTC to hold futures customer funds in a commingled customer account at FICC. Before the exemption, only clearing members could cross-margin futures positions in U.S. Treasury securities cleared at CME with cash market positions in U.S. Treasury securities cleared at FICC; the CFTC framed the change as supporting CFTC and SEC efforts to strengthen resilience and liquidity in the U.S. Treasury market by enabling more efficient risk management across related products. The exemptive order will be posted on CFTC.gov and published in the Federal Register, alongside a related SEC exemptive order to be posted on SEC.gov and published in the Federal Register.
Commodity Futures Trading Commission 2026-04-15
Commodity Futures Trading Commission grants limited exemption to extend CME and FICC cross-margining to certain customers
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission approved a limited exemptive order allowing Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and the Fixed Income Clearing Corporation to extend their cross-margining arrangement to certain customers, subject to safeguards. Joint clearing members dually registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission as broker-dealers and with the CFTC as futures commission merchants may now hold futures customer funds in a commingled customer account at FICC, which the CFTC said supports more efficient risk management and strengthens resilience and liquidity in the U.S. Treasury market.