July 28, 2014 (TORONTO) – The Bank of Canada and certain provincial commissions today announced that the TMX Group Limited central counterparties (CCPs) – CDCC, CDS and NGX – can each be considered qualifying central counterparties (QCCPs) pursuant to the standards developed by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision and adopted by OSFI. This status allows certain bank exposures to the CCPs to be subject to lower capital requirements.
“TMX Group welcomes this designation,” added Thomas Kloet, CEO, TMX Group. “Our central counterparties continue to provide valuable services to participants across our marketplaces and this designation recognizes our efforts to meet the highest international standards for these important entities”.
To achieve QCCP status, an entity must be licensed to operate as a CCP and be prudentially supervised by a regulator/overseer that has established and publicly indicated that it applies to the CCP, on an ongoing basis, domestic rules and regulations that are consistent with the Principles for Financial Market Infrastructures (PFMIs) established by the Committee on Payment and Settlement Systems (CPSS) and the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO). The PFMIs are international standards for payment, clearing and settlement systems, including central counterparties, which are designed to ensure that the infrastructure supporting global financial markets is robust and well placed to withstand financial shocks. The Bank of Canada and the provincial securities regulators that have licensed CDS, CDCC and NGX to operate as CCPs have all adopted the PFMIs as their risk-management standard for CCPs.