LCH has welcomed the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) and RBC (Channel Islands) to its RepoClear service.
RBC is the first Canadian bank to become a clearing member while RBC (Channel Islands) is the first clearing member from the Channel Islands to join.
The service, which offers clearing for European and UK government bonds and repos across 14 markets, operates an open access model, connecting to multiple trading venues and CSDs to provide clearing members with a choice of where to execute and settle its trades.
According to LCH, this will allow both entities to benefit from the risk management efficiencies of central clearing.
Bruce Kellaway, global head of rates, securities and collateral at LCH, highlighted that this is “another significant milestone in RepoClear’s global growth, following a record year for the service in 2019”.
“We look forward to supporting RBC, and continuing to grow our international membership further,” Kellaway said.
Ian Williams, head of European fixed income repo, RBC, commented: “This platform bolsters our connections to core market infrastructure, and offers RBC additional financing liquidity to support our European client activity. RBC is committed to building on our position as a leading financial services provider and an innovative, trusted partner to clients.”
Jeremy Fenn, director, central funding group, Royal Bank of Canada (Channel Islands), added: “Becoming a clearing member of LCH is a core part of our strategy to enhance our direct connections to key market infrastructure providers. Clearing allows us to effectively manage our counterparty risk as well as accessing a broad range of market participants and liquidity.”
