Assistant Vice President

CLS, a financial market infrastructure group delivering settlement, processing, and data solutions, announced today that Société Générale has gone live on its cross currency swaps (CCS) service.CCS trades have significant settlement risk exposure due to the high value of the initial and final principal exchanges. In addition, settling these trades on a gross bilateral basis results in operational inefficiencies and liquidity constraints. The CCS service can be used seamlessly in conjunction with post-trade processing platform MarkitWire to integrate CCS flows into CLSSettlement, allowing participants to benefit from multilateral netting against all FX transactions. This not only optimizes liquidity but also significantly reduces daily funding requirements.The service’s success is reflected in its exponential growth, with the values of CCS submitted to CLSSettlement up 87% year-on-year in Q3 2024.The growth in the service also supports the efforts of policy makers and regulators who promote broader adoption of payment-versus-payment (PvP) mechanisms as a means of reducing FX settlement risk and, more generally, systemic risk in the OTC derivatives market.“We are delighted that Société Générale has gone live on our CCS service,” stated Lisa Danino-Lewis, Chief Growth Officer at CLS. “Participation in the service underscores its effectiveness in enhancing operational and liquidity efficiencies for CCS trades. The growing adoption of this service as well as the growing values submitted indicate that FX market participants are actively pursuing innovative solutions to further reduce settlement risk and improve operational efficiency.”Pierre-Jean Benazech, Global Head Cross CCY Swaps trading at Société Générale commented, “We look forward to leveraging CLS’s CCS service to optimize liquidity and mitigate settlement risk

CLS, a financial market infrastructure group delivering settlement, processing and data solutions, today announced that Barclays Bank has officially gone live on its Cross Currency Swaps (CCS) service.The CCS service – an extension of CLS’s unique payment-versus-payment (PvP) settlement service, CLSSettlement – mitigates settlement risk for CCS transactions. By integrating CCS flows into CLSSettlement, the service allows for multilateral netting against all other FX transactions, providing substantial liquidity optimization benefits as well as reducing daily funding requirements for clients.As public policy efforts to mitigate settlement risk have increased, CLS’s CCS service has seen a notable rise in activity. Values of CCS submitted to CLSSettlement are up 48% year-on-year in 2023, highlighting the industry’s support for the service.Lisa Danino-Lewis, Chief Growth Officer at CLS commented, “Barclays Bank going live on our CCS service is a positive step in our continual work toward making the global FX market more resilient and efficient. The adoption of our CCS service by Barclays, one of the world’s premier banking institutions, demonstrates the value and trust placed in our risk mitigation and liquidity management solutions by the industry. The growing number of institutions, as well as growing volumes on the platform, underlines the industry’s commitment towards minimizing settlement risk in the FX market.”Michael Pollak, Head of Cross Currency Trading, Barclays Bank PLC commented, “As markets continue to navigate an uncertain period, being able to mitigate FX settlement risk via CLS’s CCS service is a vital part of our risk management practices. Through multilateral netting, we can also optimize our liquidity, reduce our funding requirements and remove friction from the market’s infrastructure