A clearing house is a financial institution that provides clearing and settlement services for financial and commodities derivatives and securities transactions. These transactions may be executed on a futures exchange or securities exchange, as well as off-exchange in the over-the-counter (OTC) markets. The clearing of the OTC transactions is called OTC clearing.
A clearing house stands between two clearing firms (also known as member firms or clearing participants) and its purpose is to reduce the risk of one (or more) clearing firm failing to honor its trade settlement obligations. A clearing house reduces the settlement risks by netting offsetting transactions between multiple counterparties, by requiring collateral deposits (a.k.a. margin deposits), by providing independent valuation of trades and collateral, by monitoring the credit worthiness of the clearing firms, and in many cases, by providing a guarantee fund that can be used to cover losses that exceed a defaulting clearing firm's collateral on deposit.
Once a trade has been executed by two counterparties either on an exchange, or in the OTC markets, the trade can be handed over to a clearing house which then steps between the two original traders' clearing firms and assumes the legal counterparty risk for the trade. This process of transferring the trade title to the clearing house is called novation. It can take fractions of seconds in highly liquid futures markets; or days, or even weeks in some OTC markets.
As the clearing house concentrates the risk of settlement failures into itself and is able to isolate the effects of a failure of a market participant, it also needs to be properly managed and well-capitalized in order to ensure its survival in the event of a significant adverse event, such as a large clearing firm defaulting or a market crash.
Many clearing house guarantee funds are capitalized with collateral from its clearing firms. In the event of a settlement failure, the clearing firm may be declared to be in default and clearing house default procedures may be utilized, which may include the orderly liquidation of the defaulting firm's positions and collateral. In the event of a significant clearing firm failure, the clearing house may draw on its guarantee fund in order to settle trades on behalf of the failed clearing firm.
Clearing of Payments
In the United States, NACHA-The Electronic Payments Association, formerly the National Automated Clearing House Association, organizes the mechanism for the financial service institutions that participate in the Automated Clearing House (ACH) network. These organizations use the ACH to transfer funds either as debits or credits between participating institutions. Most, but not all, U.S. banks are members of the NACHA. Typical uses of ACH transactions are for automatic payroll programs, monthly mortgage or membership payments, or among non-profit organizations, as a monthly donor/contribution program.
NACHA (National Automated Clearing House Association)
The Electronic Payments Association, formerly the National Automated Clearing House Association, is an organization that develops electronic solutions to improve the ACH payment system in the United States. NACHA represents more than 12,000 financial institutions through direct memberships and a network of regional payments associations, and 650 organizations through its industry councils. NACHA develops operating rules and business practices for the Automated Clearing House (ACH) Network and for electronic payments in the areas of Internet commerce, electronic bill and invoice presentment and payment (EBPP, EIPP), e-checks, financial electronic data interchange (EDI), international payments, and electronic benefit transfer (EBT).
NACHA has eight primary functions:
1. Rule-making for the ACH Network and other payments systems
2. Facilitating the development of new payment applications
3. Identification and implementation of risk management initiatives
4. Providing and supporting education programs
http://www.nacha.org/c/Education.cfm
5. Instituting and monitoring quality controls in the payments system
6. Improving member communications/relations
7. Responding to regulatory and government relations issues
8. Marketing electronic payment services
No comments:
Post a Comment