Treasury cross‑margining OK'd

The Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday cleared the way for customers to cross-margin linked Treasury cash and futures positions for the first time. (sec.gov) The April 15 order lets dual registrants — firms that are both broker-dealers and futures commission merchants — offer the setup to certain customers if they are also members of Fixed Income Clearing Corporation and Chicago Mercantile Exchange. The Securities and Exchange Commission also approved Fixed Income Clearing Corporation’s rule change to put a new cross-margining agreement with Chicago Mercantile Exchange into its Treasury clearing rules. (sec.gov) Cross-margining means a clearinghouse can look at offsetting risks together instead of demanding separate piles of collateral for each trade. In this case, the Securities and Exchange Commission said eligible Treasury securities cleared at Fixed Income Clearing Corporation can be margined together with related Treasury futures cleared at Chicago Mercantile Exchange. (sec.gov) Before Wednesday, that treatment was limited to clearing members’ own house positions. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission said its matching order now allows joint members of the two clearinghouses to hold futures customer funds in a commingled customer account at Fixed Income Clearing Corporation for this program. (sec.gov) (cftc.gov) The change lands in the middle of a broader rewrite of how the Treasury market gets cleared after the Securities and Exchange Commission’s December 13, 2023 Treasury clearing rule. That rule pushed more cash Treasury and repurchase agreement trades toward central clearing and set compliance dates that the agency later extended to December 31, 2026 for cash trades and June 30, 2027 for repo trades. (sec.gov 1) (sec.gov 2) Industry groups have spent the past year warning that the new clearing mandate would tie up more collateral unless regulators also allowed offsets across related positions. Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association says the mandate will reshape market structure for broker-dealers, asset managers, principal trading firms and clearing agencies. (sifma.org 1) (sifma.org 2) Fixed Income Clearing Corporation and Chicago Mercantile Exchange already expanded cross-margining for proprietary, or house, accounts in January 2024. Their customer expansion was filed in May and December 2025, published for comment on December 29, 2025, and approved on April 15, 2026 after amendments and a March 18, 2026 review order. (dtcc.com) (sec.gov 1) (sec.gov 2) Chicago Mercantile Exchange has told clients the program can cut margin sharply for users with offsetting positions, citing reductions that have exceeded $1 billion per day in the existing program. Fixed Income Clearing Corporation said in December that firms could begin account setup, legal documentation and workflow testing ahead of approval. (cmegroup.com) (dtcc.com) Securities and Exchange Commission Commissioner Mark Uyeda said Wednesday’s orders “complete another step” in Treasury clearing implementation. The agencies still have to get the market through the 2026 and 2027 clearing deadlines, but the collateral rulebook is now closer to the trading reality they are trying to clear. (sec.gov)