BME Will Bring Its CCP Activities Under One UMBRELLA BME Clearing

• In compliance with the European Regulation EMIR, BME has separated the exchange activity from the CCP activity
• BME Clearing will include the clearing of cash markets

BME will bring its CCP activities under one umbrella, BME Clearing.

CCPs are market infrastructures vital for guaranteeing the smooth functioning of financial transactions executed in regulated markets. CCPs step in between two parties to a trade and take on and manage the counterparty risk. The financial regulation and legislation are increasingly in favour of greater use of these infrastructures in all financial trades so that these are more secure and transparent.

The European legislation, the EMIR Regulation (European Market Infrastructure Regulation, UE 648/2012), establishes the obligation for trading and clearing activities to be separated. Until now MEFF acted both as an official exchange and a CCP. As a result of the separation of functions, MEFF takes up the exchange activity as the governing company for BME’s Derivatives Market and BME Clearing will act as the CCP.

BME Clearing handles the transactions that take place in the three activity segments operated by BME that are CCP cleared, that is, Financial Derivatives, Public Debt Repos and Electricity Derivatives. In the future it will also encompass the clearing of the cash market (Equities and Fixed Income), a CCP segment which is now being developed in the context of the Reform of the Clearing and Settlement activities in Spain.