The London Stock Exchange Group’s (LSEG) clearing arm, LCH, has reported record volumes across its clearing businesses in the first quarter of 2022.
LCH’s global interest rate swap business, SwapClear, achieved a record in cleared trades which saw $323.9 trillion cleared in nominal from 2.05 million trades, an increase of 19% and 7% respectively compared to the same period last year.
SwapClear also compressed $226 trillion in nominal across 1.57 million trades, an increase of 32% and 11% respectively versus 2021.
ForexClear saw increased growth too, with a record $6.5 trillion of nominal cleared across the service which was an increase of 19% compared to last year. It also achieved a quarterly record with clients clearing $90 billion of nominal, an increase of 42% compared to 2021.
The record figures follow LSEG’s acquisition of Refinitiv in January 2021 as well as ForexClear’s partnership with FXall to improve FX traders’ access to clearing for FX OTC trades.
The new solution is said to provide FXall Settlement Center users a quicker way of clearing NDF trades through LCH’s ForexClear service, while also providing access to its risk management and efficiency benefits.
Similarly, SwapAgent achieved a record quarter with a record $665 billion registered, an increase of 393% versus the first quarter last year.
LCH’s repo clearing business, RepoClear, also saw records across RepoClear Ltd and SA, with a combined €67.47 trillion of nominal cleared across 2.9 million trade sides cleared.
RepoClear SA cleared €53.77 trillion of nominal across 2.6 million trade sides, an increase of 49% and 41% respectively compared to last year. Meanwhile, RepoClear Ltd cleared €13.7 trillion of nominal across 346,000 trade sides, an increase of 49% and 41% respectively versus the first quarter 2021.
Last month, LCH’s CDSClear revealed plans to offer client clearing of credit index options – with BNP Paribas and JP Morgan becoming the first banks to offer the service through CSDClear.
In respect to Q1 figures, CSDClear achieved a record €927 billion on index, single names and options nominal cleared, an increase of 48% compared to Q1 of 2021.
CSDClear also achieved a record $36 billion US index and single names nominal cleared, an increase of 224% versus the same period last year.
The multiple records achieved by LCH across its clearing businesses builds upon various record clearing volumes achieved in 2021, which followed the expansion of its services and the building of new connectivity.