"Independent traders play a key role in providing liquidity and transparency to futures markets," said David Goone, Senior Vice President of IntercontinentalExchange. "For the first time since the passage of the Commodity Futures Modernization Act in 2000, all registered traders will have the opportunity to trade in OTC commodity markets via a digital platform. Their participation on Intercontinental's platform will increase the utility of our marketplace to our 6000 commercial and financial customers. This initiative was borne out of Intercontinental's continuing pursuit of broadening access, transparency and distribution within the energy risk management markets."
Intercontinental's application to the CFTC was in response to numerous inquiries for trading access by the futures exchanges' trading community, including proprietary trading groups. Prior to this relief, many of these market participants were not eligible to trade on Intercontinental.
"The new access standards will allow independent members of exchanges to trade the highly robust and liquid energy OTC derivative markets on Intercontinental that were formerly reserved for only large corporations," said former Aquila Natural Gas Trader, Scott Smith.
Keith Bronstein, President of TradeLink, LLC in Chicago said, "We have long enjoyed access to electronic trading at the world's major futures exchanges. Intercontinental offers interesting new markets that we look forward to accessing."
Transactions executed on Intercontinental's platform may be settled on a bilateral basis or cleared through a designated clearing organization with which Intercontinental has established a clearing relationship. For detailed information on these requirements, please refer to Intercontinental's website at www.theice.com, where a copy of the requirements will be made available.
About IntercontinentalExchange
IntercontinentalExchange operates global OTC and futures marketplaces for the trading of energy and metals products. Based in Atlanta, with offices in Chicago, Houston, London, New York and Singapore, IntercontinentalExchange also owns the International Petroleum Exchange of London (IPE), Europe's leading energy futures and options exchange.
The IntercontinentalExchange electronic platform is used by thousands of traders and trading operations professionals every business day to trade more than 600 listed commodity and derivative contract types around the world, including crude oil and refined products, natural gas, power, precious metals, weather derivatives and emissions allowances. Contract forms include physical delivery as well as financially settled swaps, spreads, differentials and options based on a variety of fixed and floating price indices. Intercontinental also supports the broader trading infrastructure with OTC cleared products and credit management, eConfirm, and market data services offered through The 10x Group.
The IPE provides regulated open outcry and electronic marketplaces where industry participants use futures and options to manage their price risk exposure in the physical energy market. Products traded on the IPE include Brent Crude futures and options, Gas Oil futures and options, and Natural Gas futures. For more information about IntercontinentalExchange, please visit the website at http://www.theice.com. More information about The 10xGroup is available at www.10xGroup.com. The website for the International Petroleum Exchange can be found at www.ipe.uk.com.
