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CME Group says preparing to open account at the Fed

April 12, 2016 7:16 PM EDT

By Ann Saphir

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - CME Group Inc (NASDAQ: CME) said on Tuesday it has received notice from the Federal Reserve that it is authorized to open an account at the U.S. central bank, allowing it to better safeguard cash deposited by its traders.

Deposits in the account will be limited to clearing member proprietary margins, CME said in an advisory to its members. CME is working with the Chicago Fed to open the account and will let members know how much interest it will pay on balances "as we get closer to an account opening date."

CME, which operates one of the world's biggest derivatives clearinghouses and several exchanges including the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, applied for access to Fed services in 2014, after its clearinghouse was designated a "systemically important" financial institution as part of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform act.

On any given day CME holds billions of dollars of margins put up by traders to back their positions at the clearinghouse, although it is unclear how much of this will be deposited at the Fed. A CME Group spokeswoman declined to provide figures or further detail.

IntercontinentalExchange, CME's biggest U.S. rival, also has an account at the Fed to keep cash from its swaps traders.

(Reporting by Ann Saphir; Editing by Chris Reese and Diane Craft)



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