CME Group Inc. and Citadel Investment Group LLC said Tuesday they are creating a market to clear and trade credit-default swaps, the arcane insurance-like contracts that are at the heart of the global credit freeze.
The joint venture, planned to be up and running in 30 days, comes as regulators call for more oversight of the $55-trillion industry amid growing fears that defaults by trading partners to the contracts could cripple the financial system. Concern about the global ramifications of such failures was one reason the Federal Reserve decided to step in with an $85-billion loan to prevent the collapse of American Insurance Group Inc.
CME has tried before and failed to break into the lucrative credit-default swaps market, controlled by many of the largest investment and commercial banks. Those banks are backing a competing clearinghouse, Chicago-based Clearing Corp., which plans to apply for a New York banking license and be up and running by the end of the year. IntercontinentalExchange Inc., an Atlanta-based futures market, also plans its own clearinghouse. Representatives of all firms were in New York on Tuesday pitching their plans to federal regulators.
CME CEO Craig Donohue says that recent bank failures and other disruptions to the financial system will force players to the table who previously refused to deal in CME products.
“You have dramatically different market circumstances now,” Mr. Donohue says. “The system begins to grind to a halt. More than in any other asset class at any other time I can remember, there’s a very significant need to solve these problems.”
Mr. Donohue said his venture has been working on the plan with four regulators — the Treasury, the Fed, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission — but that the venture’s ultimate regulator has not yet been determined.
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